*x 


AN  OLD 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

Ex  Libris 

Katharine  F.  Richmond 

and 
Henry  C.  Fall 


dbnmafl  -Bntlrp  Rttricb 


WORKS.     Riverside  Edition,    o  vols. 
I,  II.  POEMS. 

III.  MARJORIE  DAW  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

IV.  PRUDENCE    PALFREY,    AND   A   RIVERMOUTH    RO- 

MANCE. 

V.  THE    QUEEN    OF   SHEBA,    AND   OTHER    STORIES. 
VI    THE   STILLWATER  TRAGEDY. 

VII.  THE    STORY   OF    A    BAD    BOY,    AND    THE    LITTLE 

VIOLINIST,   WITH    OTHER    SKETCHES. 

VIII.  FROM   PONKAPOG  TO  PESTH,  AND  AN  OLD  TOWN 

BY  THE   SEA. 

IX.  PONKAPOG    PAPERS,    A    SEA  TURN    AND   OTHER 

MATTERS. 
POEMS.     Riverside  Edition.    2  vols. 

THE   SAME.    Household  Edition.     Illustrated. 

THE   SAME.     Popular  Edition.     Illustrated. 
THE   SHADOWS  OF  THE   FLOWERS.     Illustrated. 
JUDITH    AND    HOLOFERNES.     A  Poem 
UNGUARDED   GATES   AND    OTHER    POEMS. 
WYNDHAM   TOWERS.     A  Poem. 
THE   SISTERS'   TRAGEDY,   AND  OTHER   POEMS. 
MERCEDES.     A  Drama  in  Two  Act*. 
LATER    LYRICS. 

JUDITH    OF    BETHULIA.     A  Tragedy. 
A    SEA  TURN    AND   OTHER    MATTERS. 
MARJORIE    DAW.    Holiday  Edition. 

THE    SAME.     Cambridge  Classics. 
THE   STORY  OF   A    BAD    BOY.     Illustrated. 

THE   SAME.    Holiday  Edition     Illustrated  by  A.  B.  Frost. 

THE   SAME.    Visitors' Edition.     Illustrated. 
TWO    BITES    AT  A   CHERRY   AND    OTHER  TALES. 
AN    OLD  TOWN    BY  THE    SEA. 
PRUDENCE    PALFREY.     With  frontispiece. 
THE   QUEEN    OF   SHEBA. 
THE    STILLWATER  TRAGEDY. 
PONKAPOG    PAPERS. 
FROM    PONKAPOG   TO   PESTH. 
THE    STORY   OF   A    CAT.    Translated  from  the  French  of 

Emile  de  la  Be*dolliere.     Illustrated. 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


<£&ition 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 


-/' 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY 
THE  SEA 


BY 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
(&be  Stttoettftoe  pres0,  Cambridge 


COPYRIGHT,    1893,   BY  T.  B.   ALDRICR 
COPYRIGHT,   1917,  BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


P1SCATAQUA   RIVER 

Thou  singest  by  the  gleaming  isles, 
By  woods,  and  fields  of  corn, 
Thou  singest,  and  the  sunlight  smiles 
Upon  my  birthday  morn. 

But  I  within  a  city,  I, 
So  full  of  vague  unrest, 
Would  almost  give  my  life  to  lie 
An  hour  upon  thy  breast ! 

To  let  the  wherry  listless  go. 
And,  wrapt  in  dreamy  joy, 
Dip,  and  surge  idly  to  and  fro, 
Like  the  red  harbor-buoy  ; 

To  sit  in  happy  indolence, 

To  rest  upon  the  oars, 

And  catch  the  heavy  earthy  scents 

That  blow  from  summer  shores  ; 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE  GOVERNOR  BENNINQ  WENTWORTH  HOUSE 

AT  LITTLE  HARBOR,  PORTSMOUTH        Frontispiece 

Photograph  by  Charles  S.  Olcott 
OLD  WAREHOUSES  ON  THE  RIVER-FRONT   .        .      10 

Photograph  by  Charles  S.  Olcott 
ISLANDS  IN  THE  PISCATAQUA  NEAR  THE  MOUTH      14 

Photograph  by  Charles  S.  Olcott 
THE  OLD  PLEASANT  STREET  BURYING-GROUND      20 

Photograph  furnished  by  the  St.  Clair  Studio, 
Portsmouth 

THE  PARADE:    MARKET  SQUARE  BEFORE  THE 

AUTOMOBILE 24 

Photograph  furnished  by  the  St.  Clair  Studio 

THE  OLD  BELL  TAVERN  IN  THE  DAYS  OF  THE 

"ONE-Hoss  SHAY" 28 

Photograph  furnished  by  the  St.  Clair  Studio 
ST.  JOHN'S  CHURCH 30 

Photograph  by  Charles  S.  Olcott 
THE  GOVERNOR  LANGDON  HOUSE        ...      34 

Photograph  furnished  by  the  St.  Clair  Studio 
THE  WARNER  HOUSE 38 

Photograph  by  Charles  S.  Olcott 


yi  ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  EARL  OF  HALIFAX  TAVERN.        ...      46 
From  an  old  photograph  furnished  by  the  St. 
Clair  Studio 

THE  LIVING-ROOM  OF  THB  GOVERNOR  BENNIKQ 

WENTWORTH  HOUSE 52 

Photograph  by  Mary  H.  Northend,  Salem 

ENTRANCE  TO  THE  GOVERNOR  BENNINQ  WENT- 
WORTH PLACE 54 

Photograph  by  Mary  H.  Northend 

PLEASANT  STREET 58 

Photograph  by  Charles  S.  Olcott 

HALLWAY  IN  THE  GOVERNOR  BENNING  WENT- 
WORTH HOUSE 64 

Photograph  by  Mary  H.  Northend 
THE  JACOB  WENDELL  HOUSE      ....      70 
Photograph  by  Mary  H.  Northend 

DlNlNG-ROOM    IN  THE    JACOB   WENDELL    HOUSE        76 

Photograph  by  Mary  H.  Northend 

GARDEN  OF  THE  JACOB  WENDELL  HOUSE  .       .      82 
Photograph  by  Mary  H.  Northend 

THE  BAILEY  HOUSE,  WHERE  THE  BOY  THOMAS 
BAILEY  ALDRICH  LIVED  WITH  HIS  GRAND- 
FATHER   .88 

Photograph  by  Charles  S.  Olcott 

HALL  AND  STAIRCASE  IN  THE  WHEPPLE-LADD 

HOUSE 100 

Photograph  furnished  by  W.  J.  Ladd 

THE  SHERBURNE  HOUSE 116 

Photograph  furnished  by  the  St.  Clair  Studio 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 


CAPTAIN  JOHN  SMITH 

I  CALL  it  an  old  town,  but  it  is  only  rela- 
tively old.  When  one  reflects  on  the  count- 
less centuries  that  have  gone  to  the  for- 
mation of  this  crust  of  earth  on  which  we 
temporarily  move,  the  most  ancient  cities  on 
its  surface  seem  merely  things  of  the  week 
before  last.  It  was  only  the  other  day,  then 
—  that  is  to  say,  in  the  month  of  June,  1603 
— that  one  Martin  Pring,  in  the  ship  Speed- 
well, an  enormous  ship  of  nearly  fifty  tons 
burden,  from  Bristol,  England,  sailed  up  the 
Piscataqua  River.  The  Speedwell,  number-, 
ing  thirty  men,  officers  and  crew,  had  fox 
consort  the  Discoverer,  of  twenty-six  tons 


2  AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

and  thirteen  men.  After  following  the 
windings  of  "the  brave  river"  for  twelve 
miles  or  more,  the  two  vessels  turned  back 
and  put  to  sea  again,  having  failed  in  the 
chief  object  of  the  expedition,  which  was  to 
obtain  a  cargo  of  the  medicinal  sassafras- 
tree,  from  the  bark  of  which,  as  was  well 
known  to  our  ancestors,  could  be  distilled 
the  Elixir  of  Life. 

It  was  at  some  point  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Piseataqua,  three  or  four  miles  from 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  that  worthy  Master 
Pring  probably  effected  one  of  his  several 
landings.  The  beautiful  stream  widens  sud- 
denly at  this  place,  and  the  green  banks, 
then  covered  with  a  network  of  strawberry 
vines,  and  sloping  invitingly  to  the  lip  of 
the  crystal  water,  must  have  won  the  tired 
mariners. 

The  explorers  found  themselves  on  the 
edge  of  a  vast  forest  of  oak,  hemlock,  maple, 
and  pine;  but  they  saw  no  sassafras-trees 
to  speak  of,  nor  did  they  encounter  —  what 
would  have  been  infinitely  less  to  their  taste 


AY  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA  8 

—  any  red-men.  Here  and  there  were  dis- 
coverable the  scattered  ashes  of  fires  where 
the  Indians  had  encamped  earlier  in  the 
spring ;  they  were  absent  now,  at  the  silvery 
falls,  higher  up  the  stream,  where  fish 
abounded  at  that  season.  The  soft  June 
breeze,  laden  with  the  delicate  breath  of 
wild-flowers  and  the  pungent  odors  of  spruce 
and  pine,  ruffled  the  duplicate  sky  in  the 
water ;  the  new  leaves  lisped  pleasantly  in  the 
tree  tops,  and  the  birds  were  singing  as  if 
they  had  gone  mad.  No  ruder  sound  or 
movement  of  life  disturbed  the  primeval  soli- 
tude. Master  Pring  would  scarcely  recog- 
nize the  spot  were  he  to  land  there  to-day. 

Eleven  years  afterwards  a  much  cleverer 
man  than  the  commander  of  the  Speedwell 
dropped  anchor  in  the  Piscataqua — Captain 
John  Smith  of  famous  memory.  After  slay- 
ing Turks  in  hand-to-hand  combats,  and 
doing  all  sorts  of  doughty  deeds  wherever 
he  chanced  to  decorate  the  globe  with  his 
presence,  he  had  come  with  two  vessels  to 
the  fisheries  on  the  rocky  selvage  of  Maine, 


4  AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

when  curiosity,  or  perhaps  a  deeper  motive, 
led  him  to  examine  the  neighboring  shore 
lines.  With  eight  of  his  men  in  a  small  boat, 
a  ship's  yawl,  he  skirted  the  coast  from  Pe- 
nobscot  Bay  to  Cape  Cod,  keeping  his  eye 
open.  This  keeping  his  eye  open  was  a  pe- 
culiarity of  the  little  captain ;  possibly  a  fam- 
ily trait.  It  was  Smith  who  really  discovered 
the  Isles  of  Shoals,  exploring  in  person  those 
masses  of  bleached  rock  —  those  "  isles  assez 
hautes"  of  which  the  French  navigator 
Pierre  de  Guast,  Sieur  de  Monts,  had  caught 
a  bird's-eye  glimpse  through  the  twilight  in 
1605.  Captain  Smith  christened  the  group 
Smith's  Isles,  a  title  which  posterity,  with 
singular  persistence  of  ingratitude,  has  ig- 
nored. It  was  a  tardy  sense  of  justice  that 
expressed  itself  a  few  years  ago  in  erecting 
on  Star  Island  a  simple  marble  shaft  to  the 
memory  of  JOHN  SMITH  —  the  multitudi- 
nous !  Perhaps  this  long  delay  is  explained 
by  a  natural  hesitation  to  label  a  monument 
so  ambiguously. 

The  modern  Jason,  meanwhile,  was  not 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA  5 

without  honor  in  his  own  country,  whatever 
may  have  happened  to  him  in  his  own  house, 
for  the  poet  George  Wither  addressed  a  copy 
of  pompous  verses  "  To  his  Friend  Captain 
Smith,  upon  his  Description  of  New  Eng- 
land." "  Sir,"  he  says  — 

"  Sir :  your  Relations  I  haue  read :  which  shew 
Ther  's  reason  I  should  honor  them  and  you  : 
And  if  their  meaning  I  haue  vnderstood, 
I  dare  to  censure  thus :  Your  Project 's  good ; 
And  may  (if  f  ollow'd)  doubtlesse  quit  the  paine 
With  honour,  pleasure  and  a  trebble  gaine  ; 
Beside  the  benefit  that  shall  arise 
To  make  more  happy  our  Posterities." 

The  earliest  map  of  this  portion  of  our 
seaboard  was  prepared  by  Smith  and  laid 
before  Prince  Charles,  who  was  asked  to  give 
the  country  a  name.  He  christened  it  New 
England.  In  that  rather  remarkable  map  the 
site  of  Portsmouth  is  called  Hull,  and  Kittery 
and  York  are  known  as  Boston. 

It  was  doubtless  owing  to  Captain  John 
Smith's  representation  on  his  return  to  Eng- 
land that  the  Laconia  Company  selected  the 
banks  of  the  Piscataqua  for  their  plantation. 


6  AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

Smith  was  on  an  intimate  footing  with  Sir 
Ferdinand  Gorges,  who,  five  years  subse- 
quently, made  a  tour  of  inspection  along  the 
New  England  coast,  in  company  with  John 
Mason,  then  Governor  of  Newfoundland. 
One  of  the  results  of  this  summer  cruise  is 
the  town  of  Portsmouth,  among  whose  leafy 
ways,  and  into  some  of  whose  old-fashioned 
houses,  I  purpose  to  take  the  reader,  if  he 
have  an  idle  hour  on  his  hands.  Should 
we  meet  the  flitting  ghost  of  some  old- 
time  worthy,  on  a  staircase  or  at  a  lonely 
street  corner,  the  reader  must  be  prepared 
for  it. 


n 

ALONG  THE  WATER  SIDE 

IT  is  not  supposable  that  the  early  set- 
tlers selected  the  site  of  their  plantation  on 
account  of  its  picturesqueness.  They  were 
influenced  entirely  by  the  lay  of  the  land, 
its  nearness  and  easy  access  to  the  sea,  and 
the  secure  harbor  it  offered  to  their  fishing- 
vessels  ;  yet  they  could  not  have  chosen  a 
more  beautiful  spot  had  beauty  been  the 
sole  consideration.  The  first  settlement  was 
made  at  Odiorne's  Point — the  Pilgrims' 
Rock  of  New  Hampshire  ;  there  the  Manor, 
or  Mason's  Hall,  was  built  by  the  Laconia 
Company  in  1623.  It  was  not  until  1631 
that  the  Great  House  was  erected  by  Hum- 
phrey Chadborn  on  Strawberry  Bank.  Mr. 
Chadborn,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
sowed  a  seed  from  which  a  city  has  sprung. 


8  AY  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

The  town  of  Portsmouth  stretches  along 
the  south  bank  of  the  Piscataqua,  about  two 
miles  from  the  sea  as  the  crow  flies  —  three 
miles  following  the  serpentine  course  of  the 
river.  The  stream  broadens  suddenly  at 
this  point,  and  at  flood  tide,  lying  without  a 
ripple  in  a  basin  formed  by  the  interlocked 
islands  and  the  mainland,  it  looks  more  like 
an  inland  lake  than  a  river.  To  the  unac- 
customed eye  there  is  no  visible  outlet. 
Standing  on  one  of  the  wharves  at  the  foot 
of  State  Street  or  Court  Street,  a  stranger 
would  at  first  scarcely  suspect  the  conti- 
guity of  the  ocean.  A  little  observation, 
however,  would  show  him  that  he  was  in  a 
seaport.  The  rich  red  rust  on  the  gables 
and  roofs  of  ancient  buildings  looking  sea- 
ward would  tell  him  that.  There  is  a  fitful 
saline  flavor  in  the  air,  and  if  while  he 
gazed  a  dense  white  fog  should  come  rolling 
in,  like  a  line  of  phantom  breakers,  he 
would  no  longer  have  any  doubts. 

It  is  of  course  the  oldest  part  of  the  town 
that  skirts  the  river,  though  few  of  the  no- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA  9 

table  houses  that  remain  are  to  be  found 
there.  Like  all  New  England  settlements, 
Portsmouth  was  built  of  wood,  and  has  been 
subjected  to  extensive  conflagrations.  You 
rarely  come  across  a  brick  building  that  is 
not  shockingly  modern.  The  first  house  of 
the  kind  was  erected  by  Richard  Wibird  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

Though  many  of  the  old  landmarks  have 
been  swept  away  by  the  fateful  hand  of 
time  and  fire,  the  town  impresses  you  as  a 
very  old  town,  especially  as  you  saunter 
along  the  streets  down  by  the  river.  The 
worm-eaten  wharves,  some  of  them  covered 
by  a  sparse,  unhealthy  beard  of  grass,  and 
the  weather-stained,  unoccupied  warehouses 
are  sufficient  to  satisfy  a  moderate  appetite 
for  antiquity.  These  deserted  piers  and 
these  long  rows  of  empty  barracks,  with 
their  sarcastic  cranes  projecting  from  the 
eaves,  rather  puzzle  the  stranger.  Why  this 
great  preparation  for  a  commercial  activity 
that  does  not  exist,  and  evidently  has  not 
for  years  existed  ?  There  are  no  ships 


10        AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

lying  at  the  pier-heads ;  there  are  no  gangs 
of  stevedores  staggering  under  heavy  cases 
of  merchandise ;  here  and  there  is  a  barge 
laden  down  to  the  bulwarks  with  coal,  and 
here  and  there  a  square-rigged  schooner 
from  Maine  smothered  with  fragrant  planks 
and  clapboards ;  an  imported  citizen  is  fish- 
ing at  the  end  of  the  wharf,  a  ruminative 
freckled  son  of  Drogheda,  in  perfect  sym- 
pathy with  the  indolent  sunshine  that  seems 
to  be  sole  proprietor  of  these  crumbling 
piles  and  ridiculous  warehouses,  from  which 
even  the  ghost  of  prosperity  has  flown. 

Once  upon  a  time,  however,  Portsmouth 
carried  on  an  extensive  trade  with  the  West 
Indies,  threatening  as  a  maritime  port  to 
eclipse  both  Boston  and  New  York.  At  the 
windows  of  these  musty  counting-rooms 
which  overlook  the  river  near  Spring  Mar- 
ket used  to  stand  portly  merchants,  in  knee 
breeches  and  silver  shoe-buckles  and  plum- 
colored  coats  with  ruffles  at  the  wrist,  waiting 
for  their  ships  to  come  up  the  Narrows ;  the 
cries  of  stevedores  and  the  chants  of  sailors 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         11 

at  the  windlass  used  to  echo  along  the  shore 
where  all  is  silence  now.  For  reasons  not 
worth  setting  forth,  the  trade  with  the  Indies 
abruptly  closed,  having  ruined  as  well  as 
enriched  many  a  Portsmouth  adventurer. 
This  explains  .the  empty  warehouses  and  the 
unused  wharves.  Portsmouth  remains  the 
interesting  widow  of  a  once  very  lively  com- 
merce. I  fancy  that  few  fortunes  are  either 
made  or  lost  in  Portsmouth  nowadays. 
Formerly  it  turned  out  the  best  ships,  as  it 
did  the  ablest  ship  captains,  in  the  world. 
There  were  families  in  which  the  love  for 
blue  water  was  an  immemorial  trait.  The 
boys  were  always  sailors ;  "  a  gray-headed 
shipmaster,  in  each  generation,  retiring 
from  the  quarter-deck  to  the  homestead, 
while  a  boy  of  fourteen  took  the  hereditary 
place  before  the  mast,  confronting  the  salt 
spray  and  the  gale,  which  had  blasted 
against  his  sire  and  grandsire."  1  With 
thousands  of  miles  of  sea-line  and  a  score 
or  two  of  the  finest  harbors  on  the  globe, 

1  Hawthorne  in  his  introduction  to  The  Scarlet  Letter. 


12         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

we  have  adroitly  turned  over  our  carrying 
trade  to  foreign  nations. 

In  other  days,  as  I  have  said,  a  high  mar- 
itime spirit  was  a  characteristic  of  Ports- 
mouth. The  town  did  a  profitable  business 
in  the  war  of  1812,  sending  out  a  large  fleet 
of  the  sauciest  small  craft  on  record.  A 
pleasant  story  is  told  of  one  of  these  little 
privateers  —  the  Harlequin,  owned  and  com- 
manded by  Captain  Elihu  Brown.  The 
Harlequin  one  day  gave  chase  to  a  large 
ship,  which  did  not  seem  to  have  much  fight 
aboard,  and  had  got  it  into  close  quarters, 
when  suddenly  the  shy  stranger  threw  open 
her  ports,  and  proved  to  be  His  Majesty's 
Ship-of-War  Bulwark,  seventy-four  guns. 
Poor  Captain  Brown ! 

Portsmouth  has  several  large  cotton  fac- 
tories and  one  or  two  corpulent  breweries ; 
it  is  a  wealthy  old  town,  with  a  liking  for 
first  mortgage  bonds ;  but  its  warmest  lover 
will  not  claim  for  it  the  distinction  of  being 
a  great  mercantile  centre.  The  majority  of 
her  young  men  are  forced  to  seek  other  fields 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         13 

to  reap,  and  almost  every  city  in  the  Union, 
and  many  a  city  across  the  sea,  can  point  to 
some  eminent  merchant,  lawyer,  or  what  not, 
as  "  a  Portsmouth  boy."  Portsmouth  even 
furnished  the  late  king  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  Kekuanaoa,  with  a  prime  minister, 
and  his  nankeen  Majesty  never  had  a  better. 
The  affection  which  all  these  exiles  cherish 
for  their  birthplace  is  worthy  of  remark.  On 
two  occasions  —  in  1852  and  1873,  the  two 
hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  set- 
tlement of  Strawberry  Bank  —  the  trans- 
planted sons  of  Portsmouth  were  seized  with 
an  impulse  to  return  home.  Simultaneously 
and  almost  without  concerted  action,  the  lines 
of  pilgrims  took  up  their  march  from  every 
quarter  of  the  globe,  and  swept  down  with 
music  and  banners  on  the  motherly  old  town. 
To  come  back  to  the  wharves.  I  do  not 
know  of  any  spot  with  such  a  fascinating 
air  of  dreams  and  idleness  about  it  as  the 
old  wharf  at  the  end  of  Court  Street.  The 
very  fact  that  it  was  once  a  noisy,  busy 
place,  crowded  with  sailors  and  soldiers—- 


14         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

in  the  war  of  1812  —  gives  an  emphasis  to 
the  quiet  that  broods  over  it  to-day.  The 
lounger  who  sits  of  a  summer  afternoon  on 
a  rusty  anchor  fluke  in  the  shadow  of  one 
of  the  silent  warehouses,  and  looks  on  the 
lonely  river  as  it  goes  murmuring  past  the 
town,  cannot  be  too  grateful  to  the  India 
trade  for  having  taken  itself  off  elsewhere. 

What  a  slumberous,  delightful,  lazy  place 
it  is !  The  sunshine  seems  to  lie  a  foot 
deep  on  the  planks  of  the  dusty  wharf, 
which  yields  up  to  the  warmth  a  vague 
perfume  of  the  cargoes  of  rum,  molasses, 
and  spice  that  used  to  be  piled  upon  it. 
The  river  is  as  blue  as  the  inside  of  a  hare- 
bell. The  opposite  shore,  in  the  strangely 
shifting  magic  lights  of  sky  and  water, 
stretches  along  like  the  silvery  coast  of 
fairyland.  Directly  opposite  you  is  the  navy 
yard,  with  its  neat  officers'  quarters  and 
workshops  and  arsenals,  and  its  vast  ship- 
houses,  in  which  the  keel  of  many  a  fa- 
mous frigate  has  been  laid.  Those  monster 
buildings  on  the  water's  edge,  with  their 


<y 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         15 

roofs  pierced  with  innumerable  little  win- 
dows, which  blink  like  eyes  in  the  sunlight, 
are  the  shiphouses.  On  your  right  lies  a 
cluster  of  small  islands,  —  there  are  a  dozen 
or  more  in  the  harbor  —  on  the  most  ex- 
tensive of  which  you  see  the  fading-away 
remains  of  some  earthworks  thrown  up  in 
1812.  Between  this  —  Trefethren's  Island 
—  and  Peirce's  Island  lie  the  Narrows.  Per- 
haps a  bark  or  a  sloop-of-war  is  making  up 
to  town ;  the  hulk  is  hidden  among  the  is- 
lands, and  the  topmasts  have  the  effect  of 
sweeping  across  the  dry  land.  On  your  left 
is  a  long  bridge,  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  in  length,  set  upon  piles  where  the 
water  is  twenty  or  thirty  feet  deep,  leading 
to  the  navy  yard  and  Kittery  —  the  Kittery 
so  often  the  theme  of  Whittier's  verse. 

This  is  a  mere  outline  of  the  landscape 
that  spreads  before  you.  Its  changeful 
beauty  of  form  and  color,  with  the  summer 
clouds  floating  over  it,  is  not  to  be  painted 
in  words.  I  know  of  many  a  place  where 
the  scenery  is  more  varied  and  striking ;  but 


16         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

there  is  a  mandragora  quality  in  the  atmos- 
phere  here  that  holds  you  to  the  spot,  and 
makes  the  half-hours  seem  like  minutes.  I 
could  fancy  a  man  sitting  on  the  end  of  that 
old  wharf  very  contentedly  for  two  or  three 
years,  provided  it  could  be  always  June. 

Perhaps,  too,  one  would  desire  it  to  be 
always  high  water.  The  tide  falls  from 
eight  to  twelve  feet,  and  when  the  water 
makes  out  between  the  wharves  some  of  the 
picturesqueness  makes  out  also.  A  corroded 
section  of  stovepipe  mailed  in  barnacles,  or 
the  skeleton  of  a  hoopskirt  protruding  from 
the  tide  mud  like  the  remains  of  some  old- 
tune  wreck,  is  apt  to  break  the  enchantment. 

I  fear  I  have  given  the  reader  an  exagger- 
ated idea  of  the  solitude  that  reigns  along 
the  river-side.  Sometimes  there  is  society 
here  of  an  unconventional  kind,  if  you  care 
to  seek  it.  Aside  from  the  foreign  gentle- 
man before  mentioned,  you  are  likely  to 
encounter,  farther  down  the  shore  toward 
the  Point  of  Graves  (a  burial-place  of  the 
colonial  period),  a  battered  and  aged  native 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         17 

fisherman  boiling  lobsters  on  a  little  grav- 
elly beach,  where  the  river  whispers  and 
lisps  among  the  pebbles  as  the  tide  creeps  in. 
It  is  a  weather-beaten  ex-skipper  or  ex-pilot, 
with  strands  of  coarse  hair,  like  seaweed, 
falling  about  a  face  that  has  the  expression 
of  a  half-open  clam.  He  is  always  ready  to 
talk  with  you,  this  amphibious  person ;  and 
if  he  is  not  the  most  entertaining  of  gossips 
—  more  weather-wise  than  Old  Probabili- 
ties, and  as  full  of  moving  incident  as 
Othello  himself  —  then  he  is  not  the  wintry- 
haired  shipman  I  used  to  see  a  few  years 
ago  on  the  strip  of  beach  just  beyond  Lib- 
erty Bridge,  building  his  drift-wood  fire 
under  a  great  tin  boiler,  and  making  it 
lively  for  a  lot  of  reluctant  lobsters. 

I  imagine  that  very  little  change  has 
taken  place  in  this  immediate  locality,  known 
prosaically  as  Puddle  Dock,  during  the  past 
fifty  or  sixty  years.  The  view  you  get  look- 
ing across  Liberty  Bridge,  Water  Street,  is 
probably  the  same  in  every  respect  that 
presented  itself  to  the  eyes  of  the  town  folk 


18 

a  century  ago.  The  flagstaff,  on  the  right, 
is  the  representative  of  the  old  "standard 
of  liberty "  which  the  Sons  planted  on  this 
spot  in  January,  1766,  signalizing  their  op- 
position to  the  enforcement  of  the  Stamp 
Act.  On  the  same  occasion  the  patriots 
called  at  the  house  of  Mr.  George  Meserve, 
the  agent  for  distributing  the  stamps  in 
New  Hampshire,  and  relieved  him  of  his 
stamp-master's  commission,  which  document 
they  carried  on  the  point  of  a  sword  through 
the  town  to  Liberty  Bridge  (then  Swing 
Bridge),  where  they  erected  the  staff,  with 
the  motto,  "Liberty,  Property,  and  no 
Stamp  I " 

The  Stamp  Act  was  to  go  into  operation 
on  the  first  day  of  November.  On  the  pre- 
vious morning  the  "New  Hampshire  Ga- 
zette "  appeared  with  a  deep  black  border 
and  all  the  typographical  emblems  of  afflic- 
tion, for  was  not  Liberty  dead?  At  all 
events,  the  "  Gazette  "  itself  was  as  good  as 
dead,  since  the  printer  could  no  longer 
publish  it  if  he  were  to  be  handicapped 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         19 

by  a  heavy  tax.  "  The  day  was  ushered 
in  by  the  tolling  of  all  the  bells  in  town, 
the  vessels  in  the  harbor  had  their  col- 
ors hoisted  half  -  mast  high  ;  about  three 
o'clock  a  funeral  procession  was  formed, 
having  a  coffin  with  this  inscription,  LIB- 
ERTY, AGED  145,  STAMPT.  It  moved  from 
the  state  house,  with  two  unbraced  drums, 
through  the  principal  streets.  As  it  passed 
the  Parade,  minute-guns  were  fired ;  at  the 
place  of  interment  a  speech  was  delivered 
on  the  occasion,  stating  the  many  advantages 
we  had  received  and  the  melancholy  prospect 
before  us,  at  the  seeming  departure  of  our 
invaluable  liberties.  But  some  signs  of  life 
appearing,  Liberty  was  not  deposited  in  the 
grave ;  it  was  rescued  by  a  number  of  her 
sons,  the  motto  changed  to  Liberty  revived, 
and  carried  off  in  triumph.  The  detestable 
Act  was  buried  in  its  stead,  and  the  clods 
of  the  valley  were  laid  upon  it;  the  bells 
changed  their  melancholy  sound  to  a  more 
joyful  tone." 1 

1  Annals  of  Portsmouth,  by  Nathaniel  Adams,  1826. 


20        AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

With  this  side  glance  at  one  of  the  curious 
humors  of  the  time,  we  resume  our  peregri- 
nations. 

Turning  down  a  lane  on  your  left,  a  few 
rods  beyond  Liberty  Bridge,  you  reach  a 
spot  known  as  the  Point  of  Graves,  chiefly 
interesting  as  showing  what  a  graveyard 
may  come  to  if  it  last  long  enough.  In 
1671  one  Captain  John  Pickering,  of  whom 
we  shall  have  more  to  say,  ceded  to  the 
town  a  piece  of  ground  on  this  neck  for 
burial  purposes^  It  is  an  odd-shaped  lot, 
comprising  about  half  an  acre,  inclosed 
by  a  crumbling  red  brick  wall  two  or 
three  feet  high,  with  wood  capping.  The 
place  is  overgrown  with  thistles,  rank  grass, 
and  fungi ;  the  black  slate  headstones  have 
mostly  fallen  over;  those  that  still  make  a 
pretense  of  standing  slant  to  every  point  of 
the  compass,  and  look  as  if  they  were  being 
blown  this  way  and  that  by  a  mysterious 
gale  which  leaves  everything  else  untouched ; 
the  mounds  have  sunk  to  the  common  level, 
and  the  old  underground  tombs  have  col- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          21 

lapsed.  Here  and  there  among  the  moss  and 
weeds  you  can  pick  out  some  name  that 
shines  in  the  history  of  the  early  settlement ; 
hundreds  of  the  flower  of  the  colony  lie  here, 
but  the  known  and  the  unknown,  gentle  and 
simple,  mingle  their  dust  on  a  perfect  equal- 
ity now.  The  marble  that  once  bore  a 
haughty  coat  of  arms  is  as  smooth  as  the 
humblest  slate  stone  guiltless  of  heraldry. 
The  lion  and  the  unicorn,  wherever  they 
appear  on  some  cracked  slab,  are  very  much 
tamed  by  time.  The  once  fat-faced  cherubs, 
with  wing  at  either  cheek,  are  the  merest 
skeletons  now.  Pride,  pomp,  grief,  and 
remembrance  are  all  at  end.  No  reverent 
feet  come  here,  no  tears  fall  here ;  the  old 
graveyard  itself  is  dead!  A  more  dismal, 
uncanny  spot  than  this  at  twilight  would  be 
hard  to  find.  It  is  noticed  that  when  the 
boys  pass  it  after  nightfall,  they  always  go 
by  whistling  with  a  gayety  that  is  perfectly 
hollow. 

Let  us  get  into  some  cheerfuler  neighbor- 
hood! 


m 

A  STBOLL  ABOUT  TOWN 

As  you  leave  the  river  front  behind  you, 
and  pass  "  up  town,"  the  streets  grow  wider, 
and  the  architecture  becomes  more  ambitious 
—  streets  fringed  with  beautiful  old  trees 
and  lined  with  commodious  private  dwellings, 
mostly  square  white  houses,  with  spacious 
halls  running  through  the  centre.  Previous 
to  the  Revolution,  white  paint  was  seldom 
used  on  houses,  and  the  diamond-shaped 
window  pane  was  almost  universal.  Many 
of  the  residences  stand  back  from  the  brick 
or  flagstone  sidewalk,  and  have  pretty  gar- 
dens at  the  side  or  in  the  rear,  made  bright 
with  dahlias  and  sweet  with  cinnamon  roses. 
If  you  chance  to  live  in  a  town  where  the 
authorities  cannot  rest  until  they  have  de- 
stroyed every  precious  tree  within  their 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA  23 

blighting  reach,  you  will  be  especially 
charmed  by  the  beauty  of  the  streets  of 
Portsmouth.  In  some  parts  of  the  town, 
when  the  chestnuts  are  in  blossom,  you 
would  fancy  yourself  in  a  garden  in  fairy- 
land. In  spring,  summer,  and  autumn  the 
foliage  is  the  glory  of  the  fair  town — her 
luxuriant  green  and  golden  tresses!  No- 
thing could  seem  more  like  the  work  of  en- 
chantment than  the  spectacle  which  certain 
streets  in  Portsmouth  present  in  midwinter 
after  a  heavy  snowstorm.  You  may  walk 
for  miles  under  wonderful  silvery  arches 
formed  by  the  overhanging  and  interlaced 
boughs  of  the  trees,  festooned  with  a  drapery 
even  more  graceful  and  dazzling  than  spring- 
time gives  them.  The  numerous  elms  and 
maples  which  shade  the  principal  thorough- 
fares are  not  the  result  of  chance,  but  the 
ample  reward  of  the  loving  care  that  is 
taken  to  preserve  the  trees.  There  is  a  so- 
ciety in  Portsmouth  devoted  to  arboriculture. 
It  is  not  unusual  there  for  persons  to  leave 
legacies  to  be  expended  in  setting  out  shade 


24         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

and  ornamental  trees  along  some  favorite 
walk.  Richards  Avenue,  a  long,  unbuilt 
thoroughfare  leading  from  Middle  Street  to 
the  South  Burying-Ground,  perpetuates  the 
name  of  a  citizen  who  gave  the  labor  of  his 
own  hands  to  the  beautifying  of  that  wind- 
swept and  barren  road  to  the  cemetery. 
This  fondness  and  care  for  trees  seems  to  be 
a  matter  of  heredity.  So  far  back  as  1660 
the  selectmen  instituted  a  fine  of  five  shil- 
lings for  the  cutting  of  timber  or  any  other 
wood  from  off  the  town  common,  excepting 
under  special  conditions. 

In  the  business  section  of  the  town  trees 
are  few.  The  chief  business  streets  are 
Congress  and  Market.  Market  Street  is 
the  stronghold  of  the  dry -goods  shops. 
There  are  seasons,  I  suppose,  when  these 
shops  are  crowded,  but  I  have  never  hap- 
pened to  be  in  Portsmouth  at  the  time.  I 
seldom  pass  through  the  narrow  cobble- 
paved  street  without  wondering  where  the 
customers  are  that  must  keep  all  these  flour- 
ishing little  establishments  going.  Congress 


HH 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          25 

Street — a  more  elegant  thoroughfare  than 
Market  —  is  the  Nevski  Prospekt  of  Ports- 
mouth. Among  the  prominent  buildings  is 
the  Athenaeum,  containing  a  reading-room 
and  library.  From  the  high  roof  of  this 
building  the  stroller  will  do  well  to  take  a 
glance  at  the  surrounding  country.  He  will 
naturally  turn  seaward  for  the  more  pic- 
turesque aspects.  If  the  day  is  clear,  he 
will  see  the  famous  Isles  of  Shoals,  lying 
nine  miles  away — Appledore,  Smutty-Nose, 
Star  Island,  White  Island,  etc. ;  there  are 
nine  of  them  in  all.  On  Appledore  is 
Laighton's  Hotel,  and  near  it  the  summer 
cottage  of  Celia  Thaxter,  the  poet  of  the 
Isles.  On  the  northern  end  of  Star  Island 
is  the  quaint  town  of  Gosport,  with  a  tiny 
stone  church  perched  like  a  sea-gull  on  its 
highest  rock.  A  mile  southwest  from  Star 
Island  lies  White  Island,  on  which  is  a 
lighthouse.  Mrs.  Thaxter  calls  this  the 
most  picturesque  of  the  group.  Perilous 
neighbors,  O  mariner  !  in  any  but  the 
serenest  weather,  these  wrinkled,  scarred. 


26         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

and  storm-smitten  rocks,  flanked  by  wicked 
sunken  ledges  that  grow  white  at  the  lip 
with  rage  when  the  great  winds  blow ! 

How  peaceful  it  all  looks  off  there,  on  the 
smooth  emerald  seal  and  how  softly  the 
waves  seem  to  break  on  yonder  point  where 
the  unfinished  fort  is  !  That  is  the  ancient 
town  of  Newcastle,  to  reach  which  from 
Portsmouth  you  have  to  cross  three  bridges 
with  the  most  enchanting  scenery  in  New 
Hampshire  lying  on  either  hand.  At  New- 
castle the  poet  Stedman  has  built  for  his 
summerings  an  enviable  little  stone  chateau 
• —  a  seashell  into  which  I  fancy  the  sirens 
creep  to  warm  themselves  during  the  winter 
months.  So  it  is  never  without  its  singer. 

Opposite  Newcastle  is  Kittery  Point,  a 
romantic  spot,  where  Sir  William  Pepperell, 
the  first  American  baronet,  once  lived,  and 
where  his  tomb  now  is,  in  his  orchard  across 
the  road,  a  few  hundred  yards  from  the 
"  goodly  mansion  "  he  built.  The  knight's 
tomb  and  the  old  Pepperell  House,  which 
has  been  somewhat  curtailed  of  its  fair  pro- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         27 

portions,  are  the  objects  of  frequent  pilgrim- 
ages to  Kittery  Point. 

From  this  elevation  (the  roof  of  the  Athe- 
naeum) the  navy  yard,  the  river  with  its 
bridges  and  islands,  the  clustered  gables  of 
Kittery  and  Newcastle,  and  the  illimitable 
ocean  beyond  make  a  picture  worth  climb- 
ing four  or  five  nights  of  stairs  to  gaze  upon. 
Glancing  down  on  the  town  nestled  in  the 
foliage,  it  seems  like  a  town  dropped  by 
chance  in  the  midst  of  a  forest.  Among 
the  prominent  objects  which  lift  themselves 
above  the  tree  tops  are  the  belfries  of  the 
various  churches,  the  white  facade  of  the 
custom  house,  and  the  mansard  and  chim- 
neys of  the  Rockingham,  the  principal 
hotel.  The  pilgrim  will  be  surprised  to 
find  in  Portsmouth  one  of  the  most  com- 
pletely appointed  hotels  in  the  United 
States.  The  antiquarian  may  lament  the 
demolition  of  the  old  Bell  Tavern,  and 
think  regretfully  of  the  good  cheer  once 
furnished  the  wayfarer  by  Master  Stavers 
at  the  sign  of  the  Earl  of  Halifax,  and  by 


28        AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

Master  Stoodley  at  his  inn  on  Daniel  Street ; 
but  the  ordinary  traveler  will  thank  his 
stars,  and  confess  that  his  lines  have  fallen 
in  pleasant  places,  when  he  finds  himself 
among  the  frescoes  of  the  Rockingham. 

Obliquely  opposite  the  doorstep  of  the 
Athenaeum  —  we  are  supposed  to  be  on  terra 
firma  again  —  stands  the  Old  North  Church, 
a  substantial  wooden  building,  handsomely 
set  on  what  is  called  The  Parade,  a  large 
open  space  formed  by  the  junction  of  Con- 
gress, Market,  Daniel,  and  Pleasant  streets. 
Here  in  days  innocent  of  water-works  stood 
the  town  pump,  which  on  more  than  one  oc- 
casion served  as  whipping-post. 

The  churches  of  Portsmouth  are  more  re- 
markable for  their  number  than  their  archi- 
tecture. With  the  exception  of  the  Stone 
Church  they  are  constructed  of  wood  or 
plain  brick  in  the  simplest  style.  St.  John's 
Church  is  the  only  one  likely  to  attract  the 
eye  of  a  stranger.  It  is  finely  situated  on 
the  crest  of  Church  Hill,  overlooking  the 
ever-beautiful  river.  The  present  edifice  was 


PQ  -5 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         29 

built  in  1808  on  the  site  of  what  was  known 
as  Queen's  Chapel,  erected  in  1732,  and 
destroyed  by  fire  December  24,  1806.  The 
chapel  was  named  in  honor  of  Queen  Caro. 
line,  who  furnished  the  books  for  the  altar 
and  pulpit,  the  plate,  and  two  solid  mahog- 
any chairs,  which  are  still  in  use  in  St. 
John's.  Within  the  chancel  rail  is  a  curi- 
ous font  of  porphyry,  taken  by  Colonel 
John  Tuf  ton  Mason  at  the  capture  of  Sene- 
gal from  the  French  in  1758,  and  presented 
to  the  Episcopal  Society  in  1761.  The 
peculiarly  sweet-toned  bell  which  calls  the 
parishioners  of  St.  John's  together  every 
Sabbath  is,  I  believe,  the  same  that  formerly 
hung  in  the  belfry  of  the  old  Queen's 
Chapel.  If  so,  the  bell  has  a  history  of  its 
own.  It  was  brought  from  Louisburg  at  the 
time  of  the  reduction  of  that  place  in  1745, 
and  given  to  the  church  by  the  officers  of 
the  New  Hampshire  troops. 

The  Old  South  Meeting-House  is  not  to  be 
passed  without  mention.  It  is  among  the 
most  aged  survivals  of  pre-revolutionary  days. 


30         AY  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

Neither  its  architecture  nor  its  age,  however, 
is  its  chief  warrant  for  our  notice.  The 
absurd  number  of  windows  in  this  battered 
old  structure  is  what  strikes  the  passer-by. 
The  church  was  erected  by  subscription, 
and  these  closely  set  large  windows  are  due 
to  Henry  Sherburne,  one  of  the  wealthiest 
citizens  of  the  period,  who  agreed  to  pay 
for  whatever  glass  was  used.  If  the  build- 
ing could  have  been  composed  entirely  of 
glass  it  would  have  been  done  by  the  thrifty 
parishioners. 

Portsmouth  is  rich  in  graveyards  —  they 
seem  to  be  a  New  England  specialty  —  an- 
cient and  modern.  Among  the  old  burial- 
places  the  one  attached  to  St.  John's  Church 
is  perhaps  the  most  interesting.  It  has  not 
been  permitted  to  fall  into  ruin,  like  the  old 
cemetery  at  the  Point  of  Graves.  When 
a  headstone  here  topples  over  it  is  kindly 
lifted  up  and  set  on  its  pins  again,  and  eiv 
couraged  to  do  its  duty.  If  it  utterly  re- 
fuses,  and  is  not  shamming  decrepitude,  it 
has  its  face  sponged,  and  is  allowed  to  rest 


,ST.  JOHN'S  CHURCH 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          81 

and  sun  itself  against  the  wall  of  the  church 
with  a  row  of  other  exempts.  The  trees  are 
kept  pruned,  the  grass  trimmed,  and  here  and 
there  is  a  rosebush  drooping  with  a  weight 
of  pensive  pale  roses,  as  becomes  a  rosebush 
in  a  churchyard. 

The  place  has  about  it  an  indescribable 
soothing  atmosphere  of  respectability  and 
comfort.  Here  rest  the  remains  of  the  prin- 
cipal and  loftiest  in  rank  in  their  generation 
of  the  citizens  of  Portsmouth  prior  to  the 
Revolution  —  stanch,  royalty-loving  govern- 
ors, counselors,  and  secretaries  of  the  Prov- 
ince of  New  Hampshire,  all  snugly  gathered 
under  the  motherly  wing  of  the  Church  of 
England.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  walk 
anywhere  without  stepping  on  a  governor. 
You  grow  haughty  in  spirit  after  a  while, 
and  scorn  to  tread  on  anything  less  than 
one  of  His  Majesty's  colonels  or  a  secretary 
under  the  Crown.  Here  are  the  tombs  of 
the  Atkinsons,  the  Jaffreys,  the  Sherburnes, 
the  Sheafes,  the  Marshes,  the  Mannings, 
the  Gardners,  and  others  of  the  quality. 


82         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

All  around  you  underfoot  are  tumbled-in 
coffins,  with  here  and  there  a  rusty  sword 
atop,  and  faded  escutcheons,  and  crumbling 
armorial  devices.  You  are  moving  in  the 
very  best  society. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  earliest  cemetery 
in  Portsmouth.  An  hour's  walk  from  the 
Episcopal  yard  will  bring  you  to  the  spot, 
already  mentioned,  where  the  first  house 
was  built  and  the  first  grave  made,  at  Odi- 
orne's  Point.  The  exact  site  of  the  Manor  is 
not  known,  but  it  is  supposed  to  be  a  few 
rods  north  of  an  old  well  of  still-flowing 
water,  at  which  the  Tomsons  and  the  Hil- 
tons  and  their  comrades  slaked  their  thirst 
more  than  two  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago. 
Odiorne's  Point  is  owned  by  Mr.  Eben  L. 
Odiorne,  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  worthy 
who  held  the  property  in  1657.  Not  far 
from  the  old  spring  is  the  resting-place  of 
the  earliest  pioneers. 

"  This  first  cemetery  of  the  white  man  in 
New  Hampshire,"  writes  Mr.  Brewster, l 

1  Mr.  Charles  W.  Brewster,  for  nearly  fifty  yean  the 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          33 

"occupies  a  space  of  perhaps  one  hundred 
feet  by  ninety,  and  is  well  walled  in.  The 
western  side  is  now  used  as  a  burial-place 
for  the  family,  but  two  thirds  of  it  is  filled 
with  perhaps  forty  graves,  indicated  by 
rough  head  and  foot  stones.  Who  there 
rest  no  one  now  living  knows.  But  the  same 
care  is  taken  of  their  quiet  beds  as  if  they 
were  of  the  proprietor's  own  family.  In  1631 
Mason  sent  over  about  eighty  emigrants 
many  of  whom  died  in  a  few  years,  and  here 
they  were  probably  buried.  Here  too, 
doubtless,  rest  the  remains  of  several  of 
those  whose  names  stand  conspicuous  in  our 
early  state  records." 

editor  of  the  Portsmouth  Journal,  and  the  author  of  two 
volumes  of  local  sketches  to  which  the  writer  of  these 
pages  here  acknowledges  his  indebtedness. 


IV 

A  STROLL  ABOUT  TOWN  (continued) 

WHEN  Washington  visited  Portsmouth  in 
1789  he  was  not  much  impressed  by  the 
architecture  of  the  little  town  that  had  stood 
by  him  so  stoutly  in  the  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence. "  There  are  some  good  houses,'* 
he  writes,  in  a  diary  kept  that  year  during 
a  tour  through  Connecticut,  Massachusetts, 
and  New  Hampshire,  "  among  which  Colonel 
Langdon's  may  be  esteemed  the  first;  but 
in  general  they  are  indifferent,  and  almost 
entirely  of  wood.  On  wondering  at  this,  as 
the  country  is  full  of  stone  and  good  clay 
for  bricks,  I  was  told  that  on  account  of 
the  fogs  and  damp  they  deemed  them  whole- 
somer,  and  for  that  reason  preferred  wood 
buildings." 

The  house  of  Colonel  Langdon,  on  Pleas- 


I 

W 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          35 

ant  Street,  is  an  excellent  sample  of  the  solid 
and  dignified  abodes  which  our  great-grand- 
sires  had  the  sense  to  build.  The  art  of 
their  construction  seems  to  have  been  a  lost 
art  these  fifty  years.  Here  Governor  John 
Langdon  resided  from  1782  until  the  time  of 
his  death  in  1819  —  a  period  during  which 
many  an  illustrious  man  passed  between 
those  two  white  pillars  that  support  the  little 
balcony  over  the  front  door  ;  among  the  rest 
Louis  Philippe  and  his  brothers,  the  Dues  de 
Montpensier  and  Beaujolais,  and  the  Marquis 
de  Chastellux,  a  major-general  in  the  French 
army,  serving  under  the  Count  de  Rocham- 
beau,  whom  he  accompanied  from  France 
to  the  States  in  1780.  The  journal  of  the 
marquis  contains  this  reference  to  his  host : 
"After  dinner  we  went  to  drink  tea  with 
Mr.  Langdon.  He  is  a  handsofte  man,  and 
of  noble  carriage ;  he  has  been  a  member  of 
Congress,  and  is  now  one  of  the  first  people 
of  the  country;  his  house  is  elegant  and 
well  furnished,  and  the  apartments  admirably 
well  wainscoted  "  (this  reads  like  Mr.  Sam- 


36         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

uel  Pepys)  ;  "  and  lie  has  a  good  manuscript 
chart  of  the  harbor  of  Portsmouth.  Mrs. 
Langdon,  his  wife,  is  young,  fair,  and  tol- 
erably handsome,  but  I  conversed  less  with 
her  than  with  her  husband,  in  whose  favor  I 
was  prejudiced  from  knowing  that  he  had 
displayed  great  courage  and  patriotism  at  the 
time  of  Burgoyne's  expedition." 

It  was  at  the  height  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution that  the  three  sons  of  the  Duo 
d'Orleans  were  entertained  at  the  Langdon 
mansion.  Years  afterward,  when  Louis 
Philippe  was  on  the  throne  of  France,  he 
inquired  of  a  Portsmouth  lady  presented  at 
his  court  if  the  mansion  of  ce  brave  Crouver- 
neur  Langdon  was  still  in  existence. 

The  house  stands  back  a  decorous  distance 
from  the  street,  under  the  shadows  of  some 
gigantic  oats  or  elms,  and  presents  an  im- 
posing appearance  as  you  approach  it  over 
the  tessellated  marble  walk.  A  hundred  or 
two  feet  on  either  side  of  the  gate,  and  abut- 
ting on  the  street,  is  a  small  square  building 
of  brick,  one  story  in  height  —  probably  the 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          37 

porter's  lodge  and  tool-house  of  former  days. 
There  is  a  large  fruit  garden  attached  to  the 
house,  which  is  in  excellent  condition,  taking 
life  comfortably,  and  having  the  complacent 
air  of  a  well-preserved  beau  of  the  anrien 
regime.  The  Langdon  mansion  was  owned 
and  long  occupied  by  the  late  Kev.  Dr.  Bur- 
roughs, for  a  period  of  forty-seven  years  the 
esteemed  rector  of  St.  John's  Church. 

At  the  other  end  of  Pleasant  Street  is  an. 
other  notable  house,  to  which  we  shall  come 
by  and  by.  Though  President  Washington 
found  Portsmouth  but  moderately  attractive 
from  an  architectural  point  of  view,  the  vis- 
itor of  to-day,  if  he  have  an  antiquarian 
taste,  will  find  himself  embarrassed  by  the 
number  of  localities  and  buildings  that  ap- 
peal to  his  interest.  Many  of  these  build- 
ings were  new  and  undoubtedly  common- 
place enough  at  the  date  of  Washington's 
visit ;  time  and  association  have  given  them 
a  quaintness  and  a  significance  which  now 
make  their  architecture  a  question  of  sec- 
ondary importance. 


88          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

One  might  spend  a  fortnight  in  Ports- 
mouth exploring  the  nooks  and  corners 
over  which  history  has  thrown  a  charm, 
and  by  no  means  exhaust  the  list.  I  can- 
not do  more  than  attempt  to  describe  —  and 
that  very  briefly  —  a  few  of  the  typical  old 
houses.  On  this  same  Pleasant  Street  there 
are  several  which  we  must  leave  unnoted, 
with  their  spacious  halls  and  carven  stair- 
cases, their  antiquated  furniture  and  old  sil- 
ver tankards  and  choice  Copleys.  Numerous 
examples  of  this  artist's  best  manner  are  to 
be  found  here.  To  live  in  Portsmouth  with- 
out possessing  a  family  portrait  done  by 
Copley  is  like  living  in  Boston  without 
having  an  ancestor  in  the  old  Granary 
Burying-Ground.  You  can  exist,  but  you 
cannot  be  said  to  flourish.  To  make  this 
statement  smooth,  I  will  remark  that  every 
one  in  Portsmouth  has  a  Copley — or  would 
have  if  a  fair  division  were  made. 

In  the  better  sections  of  the  town  the 
houses  are  kept  in  such  excellent  repair,  and 
have  so  smart  an  appearance  with  their 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         39 

bright  green  blinds  and  freshly  painted 
woodwork,  that  you  are  likely  to  pass  many 
an  old  landmark  without  suspecting  it. 
Whenever  you  see  a  house  with  a  gambrel 
roof,  you  may  be  almost  positive  that  the 
house  is  at  least  a  hundred  years  old,  for 
the  gambrel  roof  went  out  of  fashion  after 
the  Revolution. 

On  the  corner  of  Daniel  and  Chapel 
streets  stands  the  oldest  brick  building  in 
Portsmouth  —  the  Warner  House.  It  was 
built  in  1718  by  Captain  Archibald  Mac- 
pheadris,  a  Scotchman,  as  his  name  indicates, 
a  wealthy  merchant,  and  a  member  of  the 
King's  Council.  He  was  the  chief  projector 
of  one  of  the  earliest  iron-works  established 
in  America.  Captain  Macpheadris  married 
Sarah  Wentworth,  one  of  the  sixteen  chil- 
dren of  Governor  John  Wentworth,  and 
died  in  1729,  leaving  a  daughter,  Mary, 
whose  portrait,  with  that  of  her  mother, 
painted  by  the  ubiquitous  Copley,  still 
hangs  in  the  parlor  of  this  house,  which  is 
not  known  by  the  name  of  Captain  Mao- 


40         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

pheadris,  but  by  that  of  his  son-in-law,  Hon. 
Jonathan  Warner,  a  member  of  the  King's 
Council  until  the  revolt  of  the  colonies. 
"  We  well  recollect  Mr.  Warner,"  says  Mr. 
Brewster,  writing  in  1858,  "  as  one  of  the 
last  of  the  cocked  hats.  As  in  a  vision  of 
early  childhood  he  is  still  before  us,  in  all 
the  dignity  of  the  aristocratic  crown  officers. 
That  broad-backed,  long-skirted  brown  coat» 
those  small-clothes  and  silk  stockings,  those 
silver  buckles,  and  that  cane  —  we  see  them 
still,  although  the  life  that  filled  and  moved 
them  ceased  half  a  century  ago." 

The  Warner  House,  a  three-story  build- 
ing with  gambrel  roof  and  luthern  windows, 
is  as  fine  and  substantial  an  exponent  of  the 
architecture  of  the  period  as  you  are  likely 
to  meet  with  anywhere  in  New  England. 
The  eighteen-inch  walls  are  of  brick  brought 
from  Holland,  as  were  also  many  of  the 
materials  used  in  the  building  —  the  hearth- 
stones, tiles,  etc.  Hewn -stone  underpin- 
nings were  seldom  adopted  in  those  days; 
the  brick-work  rests  directly  upon  the  solid 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          41 

walls  of  the  cellar.  The  interior  is  rich  in 
paneling  and  wood  carvings  about  the 
mantel-shelves,  the  deep-set  windows,  and 
along  the  cornices.  The  halls  are  wide  and 
long,  after  a  by-gone  fashion,  with  handsome 
staircases,  set  at  an  easy  angle,  and  not 
standing  nearly  upright,  like  those  bidders 
by  which  one  reaches  the  upper  chambers 
of  a  modern  house.  The  principal  rooms 
are  paneled  to  the  ceiling,  and  have  large 
open  chimney  -  places,  adorned  with  the 
quaintest  of  Dutch  tiles.  In  one  of  the  par- 
lors of  the  Warner  House  there  is  a  choice 
store  of  family  relics  —  china,  silver-plate, 
costumes,  old  clocks,  and  the  like.  There 
are  some  interesting  paintings,  too  —  not  by 
Copley  this  time.  On  a  broad  space  each 
side  of  the  hall  windows,  at  the  head  of  the 
staircase,  are  pictures  of  two  Indians,  life 
size.  They  are  probably  portraits  of  some 
of  the  numerous  chiefs  with  whom  Captain 
Macpheadris  had  dealings,  for  the  captain 
was  engaged  in  the  fur  as  well  as  in  the 
iron  business.  Some  enormous  elk  antlers, 


42          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

presented  to  Macpheadris  by  his  red  friends, 
are  hanging  in  the  lower  hall. 

By  mere  chance,  thirty  or  forty  years  ago, 
some  long-hidden  paintings  on  the  walls  of 
this  lower  hall  were  brought  to  light.  In 
repairing  the  front  entry  it  became  neces- 
sary to  remove  the  paper,  of  which  four  or 
five  layers  had  accumulated.  At  one  place, 
where  the  several  coats  had  peeled  off  cleanly, 
a  horse's  hoof  was  observed  by  a  little  girl 
of  the  family.  The  workman  then  began  re- 
moving the  paper  carefully;  first  the  legs, 
then  the  body  of  a  horse  with  a  rider  were 
revealed,  and  the  astonished  paper-hanger 
presently  stood  before  a  life-size  represen- 
tation of  Governor  Phipps  on  his  charger. 
The  workman  called  other  persons  to  his  as- 
sistance, and  the  remaining  portions  of  the 
wall  were  speedily  stripped,  laying  bare  four 
or  five  hundred  square  feet  covered  with 
sketches  in  color,  landscapes,  views  of  un- 
known cities,  Biblical  scenes,  and  modern 
figure-pieces,  among  which  was  a  lady  at  a 
spinning-wheel.  Until  then  no  person  in 


43 

the  land  of  the  living  had  had  any  know- 
ledge of  those  hidden  pictures.  An  old  dame 
of  eighty,  who  had  visited  at  the  house 
intimately  ever  since  her  childhood,  all  but 
refused  to  believe  her  spectacles  (though 
Supply  Ham  made  them1)  when  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  frescoes. 

The  place  is  rich  in  bricabrac,  but  there 
is  nothing  more  curious  than  these  incon- 
gruous paintings,  clearly  the  work  of  a  prac- 
ticed hand.  Even  the  outside  of  the  old 
edifice  is  not  without  its  interest  for  an 
antiquarian.  The  lightning-rod  which  pro- 
tects the  Warner  House  to-day  was  put  up 
under  Benjamin  Franklin's  own  supervision 
in  1762  —  such  at  all  events  is  the  credited 
tradition  —  and  is  supposed  to  be  the  first 
rod  put  up  in  New  Hampshire.  A  light- 
ning-rod "personally  conducted  "  by  Benja- 
min Franklin  ought  to  be  an  attractive  ob- 
ject to  even  the  least  susceptible  electricity. 
The  Warner  House  has  another  imperative 

1  In  the  early  part  of  this  century,  Supply  Ham  waa 
the  leading  optician  and  watchmaker  of  Portsmouth. 


44          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

claim  on  the  good-will  of  the  visitor  —  it  is 
not  positively  known  that  George  Washing- 
ton ever  slept  there. 

The  same  assertion  cannot  safely  be  made 
in  connection  with  the  old  yellow  barracks 
situated  on  the  southwest  corner  of  Court 
and  Atkinson  streets.  Famous  old  houses 
seem  to  have  an  intuitive  perception  of  the 
value  of  corner  lots.  If  it  is  a  possible 
thing,  they  always  set  themselves  down  on 
the  most  desirable  spots.  It  is  beyond  a 
doubt  that  Washington  slept  not  only  one 
night,  but  several  nights,  under  this  roof ; 
for  this  was  a  celebrated  tavern  previous 
and  subsequent  to  the  War  of  Independence, 
and  Washington  made  it  his  headquarters 
during  his  visit  to  Portsmouth  in  1797. 
When  I  was  a  boy  I  knew  an  old  lady  — 
not  one  of  the  preposterous  old  ladies  in  the 
newspapers,  who  have  all  their  faculties  un- 
impaired, but  a  real  old  lady,  whose  ninety- 
nine  years  were  beginning  to  tell  on  her 
^— who  had  known  Washington  very  well. 
She  was  a  girl  in  her  teens  when  he  came  to 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         45 

Portsmouth.  The  President  was  the  staple 
of  her  conversation  during  the  last  ten  years 
of  her  life,  which  she  passed  in  the  Stavers 
House,  bedridden  ;  and  I  think  those  ten 
years  were  in  a  manner  rendered  short  and 
pleasant  to  the  old  gentlewoman  by  the 
memory  of  a  compliment  to  her  complexion 
which  Washington  probably  never  paid  to  it. 

The  old  hotel  —  now  a  very  unsavory  tene- 
ment-house—  was  built  by  John  Stavers, 
innkeeper,  in  1770,  who  planted  in  front  of 
the  door  a  tall  post,  from  which  swung  the 
sign  of  the  Earl  of  Halifax.  Stavers  had 
previously  kept  an  inn  of  the  same  name 
on  Queen,  now  State  Street. 

It  is  a  square  three-story  building,  shabby 
and  dejected,  giving  no  hint  of  the  really 
important  historical  associations  that  cluster 
about  it.  At  the  time  of  its  erection  it  was 
no  doubt  considered  a  rather  grand  structure, 
for  buildings  of  three  stories  were  rare  in 
Portsmouth.  Even  in  1798,  of  the  six  hun- 
dred and  twenty-six  dwelling  houses  of  which 
the  town  boasted,  eighty-six  were  of  one 


46          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

story,  five  hundred  and  twenty-four  were  ok 
two  stories,  and  only  sixteen  of  three  stories. 
The  Stavers  inn  has  the  regulation  gambrel 
roof,  but  is  lacking  in  those  wood  ornaments 
which  are  usually  seen  over  the  doors  and 
windows  of  the  more  prominent  houses  of 
that  epoch.  It  was,  however,  the  hotel  of 
the  period. 

That  same  worn  doorstep  upon  which 
Mr.  O'Shaughnessy  now  stretches  himself 
of  a  summer  afternoon,  with  a  short  clay 
pipe  stuck  between  his  lips,  and  his  hat 
crushed  down  on  his  brows,  revolving  the 
sad  vicissitude  of  things  —  that  same  door- 
step has  been  pressed  by  the  feet  of  gen- 
erals and  marquises  and  grave  dignitaries 
upon  whom  depended  the  destiny  of  the 
States  —  officers  in  gold  lace  and  scarlet 
cloth,  and  high-heeled  belles  in  patch,  pow- 
der, and  paduasoy.  At  this  door  the  Fly- 
ing Stage  Coach,  which  crept  from  Boston, 
once  a  week  set  down  its  load  of  passengers 
—  and  distinguished  passengers  they  often 
were.  Most  of  the  chief  celebrities  of  the 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          47 

land,  before  and  after  the  secession  of  the 
colonies,  were  the  guests  of  Master  Stavers, 
at  the  sign  of  the  Earl  of  Halifax. 

"While  the  storm  was  brewing  between 
the  colonies  and  the  mother  country,  it  was 
in  a  back  room  of  the  tavern  that  the  adher- 
ents of  the  crown  met  to  discuss  matters. 
The  landlord  himself  was  an  amateur  loy- 
alist, and  when  the  full  cloud  was  on  the 
eve  of  breaking  he  had  an  early  intimation 
of  the  coming  tornado.  The  Sons  of  Lib- 
erty had  long  watched  with  sullen  eyes  the 
secret  sessions  of  the  Tories  in  Master  Sta- 
vers's  tavern,  and  one  morning  the  patriots 
quietly  began  cutting  down  the  post  which 
supported  the  obnoxious  emblem.  Mr. 
Stavers,  who  seems  not  to  have  been  belli- 
gerent himself,  but  the  cause  of  belligerence 
in  others,  sent  out  his  black  slave  witji  or- 
ders to  stop  proceedings.  The  negro,  who  was 
armed  with  an  axe,  struck  but  a  single  blow 
and  disappeared.  This  blow  fell  upon  the 
head  of  Mark  Noble ;  it  did  not  kill  him, 
but  left  him  an  insane  man  till  the  day  of 


48         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

his  death,  forty  years  afterward.  A  furious 
mob  at  once  collected,  and  made  an  attack 
on  the  tavern,  bursting  in  the  doors  and 
shattering  every  pane  of  glass  in  the  win- 
dows. It  was  only  through  the  intervention 
of  Captain  John  Langdon,  a  warm  and  pop- 
ular patriot,  that  the  hotel  was  saved  from 
destruction. 

In  the  mean  while  Master  Stavers  had  es- 
caped through  the  stables  in  the  rear.  He 
fled  to  Stratham,  where  he  was  given  refuge 
by  his  friend  William  Pottle,  a  most  appro- 
priately named  gentleman,  who  had  supplied 
the  hotel  with  ale.  The  excitement  blew 
over  after  a  time,  and  Stavers  was  induced 
to  return  to  Portsmouth.  He  was  seized 
by  the  Committee  of  Safety,  and  lodged  hi 
Exeter  jail,  when  his  loyalty,  which  had 
really  never  been  very  high,  went  down  be- 
low zero ;  he  took  the  oath  of  allegiance,  and 
shortly  after  his  release  reopened  the  hotel. 
The  honest  face  of  William  Pitt  appeared 
on  the  repentant  sign,  vice  Earl  of  Halifax, 
ignominiously  removed,  and  Stavers  was 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          49 

himself  again.  In  the  state  records  is  the 
following  letter  from  poor  Noble  begging  for 
the  enlargement  of  John  Stavers :  — 

PORTSMOUTH,  February  3, 1777. 
To  the  Committee  of  Safety  of  the  Town  of  Exeter: 

GENTLEMEN,  —  As  I  am  informed  that  Mr. 
Stivers  is  in  confinement  in  gaol  upon  my  account 
contrary  to  my  desire,  for  when  I  was  at  Mr.  Stiver! 
a  fast  day  I  had  no  ill  nor  ment  none  against  the 
Gentleman  but  by  bad  luck  or  misfortune  I  have 
received  a  bad  Blow  but  it  is  so  well  that  I  hope  to 
go  out  in  a  day  or  two.  So  by  this  gentlemen  of  the 
Committee  I  hope  you  will  release  the  gentleman 
upon  my  account.  I  am  yours  to  serve. 

MARK  NOBLE, 
A  friend  to  my  country. 

From  that  period  until  I  know  not  what 
year  the  Stavers  House  prospered.  It  was 
at  the  sign  of  the  "William  Pitt  that  the  offi- 
cers of  the  French  fleet  boarded  in  1782,-and 
hither  came  the  Marquis  Lafayette,  all  the 
way  from  Providence,  to  visit  them.  John 
Hancock,  Elbridge  Gerry,  Rutledge,  and 
other  signers  of  the  Declaration  sojourned 
here  at  various  times.  It  was  here  General 


50          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

Knox  — "  that  stalwart  man,  two  officers  in 
size  and  three  in  lungs "  —  was  wont  to 
order  his  dinner,  and  in  a  stentorian  voice 
compliment  Master  Stavers  on  the  excellence 
of  his  larder.  One  day  —  it  was  at  the  time 
of  the  French  Revolution  —  Louis  Philippe 
and  his  two  brothers  applied  at  the  door 
of  the  William  Pitt  for  lodgings ;  but  the 
tavern  was  full,  and  the  future  king,  with 
his  companions,  found  comfortable  quarters 
under  the  hospitable  roof  of  Governor  Lang- 
don  in  Pleasant  Street. 

A  record  of  the  scenes,  tragic  and  humor- 
ous, that  have  been  enacted  within  this  old 
yellow  house  on  the  corner  would  fill  a  vol- 
ume. A  vivid  picture  of  the  social  and  pub- 
lic life  of  the  old  time  might  be  painted  by  a 
skillful  hand,  using  the  two  Earl  of  Halifax 
inns  for  a  background.  The  painter  would 
find  gay  and  sombre  pigments  ready  mixed 
for  his  palette,  and  a  hundred  romantic  in- 
cidents waiting  for  his  canvas.  One  of  these 
romantic  episodes  has  been  turned  to  very 
pretty  account  by  Longfellow  in  the  last 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          51 

series  of  The  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn  —  the 
marriage  of  Governor  Benning  Wentworth 
with  Martha  Hilton,  a  sort  of  second  edition 
of  King  Cophetua  and  the  Beggar  Maid. 

Martha  Hilton  was  a  poor  girl,  whose  bare 
feet  and  ankles  and  scant  drapery  when  she 
was  a  child,  and  even  after  she  was  well  in 
the  bloom  of  her  teens,  used  to  scandalize 
good  Dame  Stavers,  the  innkeeper's  wife. 
Standing  one  afternoon  in  the  doorway  of 
the  Earl  of  Halifax,1  Dame  Stavers  took  oc- 
casion to  remonstrate  with  the  sleek-limbed 
and  lightly  draped  Martha,  who  chanced 
to  be  passing  the  tavern,  carrying  a  pail 
of  water,  in  which,  as  the  poet  neatly  says, 
"  the  shifting  sunbeam  danced." 

1  The  first  of  the  two  hotels  bearing  that  title.  Mr. 
Brewster  commits  a  slight  anachronism  in  locating  the 
scene  of  this  incident  in  Jaffrey  Street,  now  Court.  The 
Stavers  House  was  not  built  until  the  year  of  Governor 
Benning  Wentworth's  death.  Mr.  Longfellow,  in  tha 
poem,  does  not  fall  into  the  same  error. 

"  One  hundred  years  ago,  and  something  more, 
In  Queen  Street,  Portsmouth,  at  her  tavern  door, 
Neat  as  a  pin,  and  blooming  as  a  rose, 
Stood  Mistress  Btaverg  in  her  furbelows." 


62          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

"  You  Pat !  you  Pat ! "  cried  Mrs.  Stavers 
severely ;  "  why  do  you  go  looking  so  ?  You 
should  be  ashamed  to  be  seen  in  the  street." 

"Never  mind  how  I  look,"  says  Miss 
Martha,  with  a  merry  laugh,  letting  slip  a 
saucy  brown  shoulder  out  of  her  dress ;  "  I 
shall  ride  in  my  chariot  yet,  ma'am." 

Fortunate  prophecy !  Martha  went  to  live 
as  servant  with  Governor  Wentworth  at  his 
mansion  at  Little  Harbor,  looking  out  to 
sea.  Seven  years  passed,  and  the  "  thin  slip 
of  a  girl,"  who  promised  to  be  no  great 
beauty,  had  flowered  into  the  loveliest  of 
Women,  with  a  lip  like  a  cherry  and  a  cheek 
like  a  tea-rose  —  a  lady  by  instinct,  one  of 
Nature's  own  ladies.  The  governor,  a  lonely 
widower,  and  not  too  young,  fell  in  love  with 
his  fair  handmaid.  Without  stating  his  pur- 
pose to  any  one,  Governor  Wentworth  in- 
vited a  number  of  friends  (among  others  the 
Rev.  Arthur  Brown)  to  dine  with  him  at 
Little  Harbor  on  his  birthday.  After  the 
dinner,  which  was  a  very  elaborate  one,  was 
at  an  end,  and  the  guests  were  discussing 


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AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          53 

their  tobacco-pipes,  Martha  Hilton  glided 
into  the  room,  and  stood  blushing  in  front 
of  the  chimney-place.  She  was  exquisitely 
dressed,  as  you  may  conceive,  and  wore  her 
hair  three  stories  high.  The  guests  stared 
at  each  other,  and  particularly  at  her,  and 
wondered.  Then  the  governor,  rising  from 
his  seat, 

"  Played  slightly  •with  hia  ruffles,  then  looked  down, 
And  said  unto  the  Reverend  Arthur  Brown : 
'  This  is  my  birthday ;  it  shall  likewise  be  J  I 

My  wedding-day ;  and  you  shall  marry  me  I ' " 

The  rector  was  dumfounded,  knowing  the 
humble  footing  Martha  had  held  in  the 
house,  and  could  think  of  nothing  cleverer 
to  say  than,  "  To  whom,  your  excellency  ?  " 
which  was  not  clever  at  all. 

"  To  this  lady,"  replied  the  governor,  tak- 
ing Martha  Hilton  by  the  hand.  The  Rev. 
Arthur  Brown  hesitated.  "As  the  Chief 
Magistrate  of  New  Hampshire  I  command 
you  to  marry  me  I "  cried  the  choleric  old 
governor. 

And  so  it  was   done;    and  the   pretty 


64          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

kitchen-maid  became  Lady  Wentworth,  and 
did  ride  in  her  own  chariot.  She  would  not 
have  been  a  woman  if  she  had  not  taken 
an  early  opportunity  to  drive  by  Stavers's 
hotel ! 

Lady  Wentworth  had  a  keen  appreciation 
of  the  dignity  of  her  new  station,  and  be- 
came a  grand  lady  at  once.  A  few  days 
after  her  marriage,  dropping  her  ring  on  the 
floor,  she  languidly  ordered  her  servant  to 
pick  it  up.  The  servant,  who  appears  to 
have  had  a  fair  sense  of  humor,  grew  sud- 
denly near-sighted,  and  was  unable  to  find 
the  ring  until  Lady  Wentworth  stooped  and 
placed  her  ladyship's  finger  upon  it.  She 
turned  out  a  faultless  wife,  however;  and 
Governor  Wentworth  at  his  death,  which 
occurred  in  1770,  signified  his  approval  of 
her  by  leaving  her  his  entire  estate.  She 
married  again  without  changing  name,  ac- 
cepting the  hand,  and  what  there  was  of  the 
heart,  of  Michael  Wentworth,  a  retired  colo- 
nel of  the  British  army,  who  came  to  this 
country  in  1767.  Colonel  Wentworth  (not 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         55 

connected,  I  think,  with  the  Portsmouth 
branch  of  Wentworths)  seems  to  have  been 
of  a  convivial  turn  of  mind.  He  shortly 
dissipated  his  wife's  fortune  in  high  living, 
and  died  abruptly  in  New  York — it  was  sup- 
posed by  his  own  hand.  His  last  words  — 
a  quite  unique  contribution  to  the  literature 
of  last  words  —  were,  "  I  have  had  my  cake, 
and  ate  it,"  which  show  that  the  colonel 
within  his  own  modest  limitations  was  a 
philosopher. 

The  seat  of  Governor  Wentworth  at  Lit- 
tle Harbor  —  a  pleasant  walk  from  Market 
Square  —  is  well  worth  a  visit.  Time  and 
change  have  laid  their  hands  more  lightly 
on  this  rambling  old  pile  than  on  any  other 
of  the  old  homes  in  Portsmouth.  When 
you  cross  the  threshold  of  the  door  you  step 
into  the  colonial  period.  Here  the  Past 
seems  to  have  halted  courteously,  waiting 
for  you  to  catch  up  with  it.  Inside  and  out- 
side the  Wentworth  mansion  remains  nearly 
as  the  old  governor  left  it ;  and  though  it  is 
no  longer  in  the  possession  of  the  family, 


66         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

the  present  owners,  in  their  willingness  to 
gratify  the  decent  curiosity  of  strangers, 
show  a  hospitality  which  has  always  charac- 
terized the  place. 

The  house  is  an  architectural  freak.  The 
main  building  —  if  it  is  the  main  building  — 
is  generally  two  stories  in  height,  with  irreg- 
ular wings  forming  three  sides  of  a  square 
whicii  opens  on  the  water.  It  is,  in  brief,  a 
cluster  of  whimsical  extensions  that  look  as 
if  they  had  been  built  at  different  periods, 
which  I  believe  was  not  the  case.  The 
mansion  was  completed  in  1750.  It  ori- 
ginally contained  fifty-two  rooms ;  a  portion 
of  the  structure  was  removed  about  half  a 
century  ago,  leaving  forty-five  apartments. 
The  chambers  were  connected  in  the  odd- 
est manner,  by  unexpected  steps  leading 
up  or  down,  and  capricious  little  passages 
that  seem  to  have  been  the  unhappy  after- 
thoughts of  the  architect.  But  it  is  a  man- 
sion on  a  grand  scale,  and  with  a  grand  air. 
The  cellar  was  arranged  for  the  stabling  of 
a  troop  of  thirty  horse  in  times  of  danger. 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         57 

The  council-chamber,  where  for  many  years 
all  questions  of  vital  importance  to  the  State 
were  discussed,  is  a  spacious,  high-studded 
room,  finished  in  the  richest  style  of  the  last 
century.  It  is  said  that  the  ornamentation 
of  the  huge  mantel,  carved  with  knife  and 
chisel,  cost  the  workman  a  year's  constant 
labor.  At  the  entrance  to  the  council- 
chamber  are  still  the  racks  for  the  twelve 
muskets  of  the  governor's  guard — so  long 
ago  dismissed  I 

Some  valuable  family  portraits  adorn  the 
walls  here,  among  which  is  a  fine  painting  — 
yes,  by  our  friend  Copley  —  of  the  lovely 
Dorothy  Quincy,  who  married  John  Han- 
cock, and  afterward  became  Madam  Scott. 
This  lady  was  a  niece  of  Dr.  Holmes's  "  Dor- 
othy Q."  Opening  on  the  council-chamber 
is  a  large  billiard-room  ;  the  billiard-table  is 
gone,  but  an  ancient  spinnet,  with  the  prim  air 
of  an  ancient  maiden  lady,  and  of  a  wheezy 
voice,  is  there ;  and  in  one  corner  stands 
a  claw-footed  buffet,  near  which  the  imagi- 
native nostril  may  still  detect  a  faint  and 


,68         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

tantalizing  odor  of  colonial  punch.  Open- 
ing also  on  the  council-chamber  are  several 
tiny  apartments,  empty  and  silent  now,  in 
which  many  a  close  rubber  has  been  played 
by  illustrious  hands.  The  stillness  and  lone- 
liness of  the  old  house  seem  saddest  here. 
The  jeweled  fingers  are  dust,  the  merry 
laughs  have  turned  themselves  into  silent, 
sorrowful  phantoms,  stealing  from  chamber 
to  chamber.  It  is  easy  to  believe  in  the 
traditional  ghost  that  haunts  the  place  — 

"  A  jolly  place  in  times  of  old, 
But  something-  ails  it  now  !  " 

The  mansion  at  Little  Harbor  is  not  the 
only  historic  house  that  bears  the  name  of 
Wentworth.  On  Pleasant  Street,  at  the 
head  of  Washington  Street,  stands  the  abode 
of  another  colonial  worthy,  Governor  John 
Wentworth,  who  held  office  from  1767  down 
to  the  moment  when  the  colonies  dropped 
the  British  yoke  as  if  it  had  been  the  letter 
H.  For  the  moment  the  good  gentleman's 
occupation  was  gone.  He  was  a  royalist  of 
the  most  florid  complexion.  In  1775,  a  man 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          59 

named  John  Fenton,  an  ex-captain  in  the 
British  army,  who  had  managed  to  offend 
the  Sons  of  Liberty,  was  given  sanctuary  in 
this  house  by  the  governor,  who  refused  to 
deliver  the  fugitive  to  the  people.  The  mob 
planted  a  small  cannon  (unloaded)  in  front 
of  the  doorstep  and  threatened  to  open  fire 
if  Fenton  were  not  forthcoming.  He  forth- 
with came.  The  family  vacated  the  prem- 
ises via  the  back-yard,  and  the  mob  entered, 
doing  considerable  damage.  The  broken 
marble  chimney-piece  still  remains,  mutely 
protesting  against  the  uncalled-for  violence. 
Shortly  after  this  event  the  governor  made 
his  way  to  England,  where  his  loyalty  was 
rewarded  first  with  a  governorship  and  then 
with  a  pension  of  X500.  He  was  governor 
of  Nova  Scotia  from  1792  to  1800,  and  died 
in  Halifax  in  1820.  This  house  is  one  of 
the  handsomest  old  dwellings  in  the  town, 
and  promises  to  outlive  many  of  its  newest 
neighbors.  The  parlor  has  undergone  no 
change  whatever  since  the  populace  rushed 
into  it  over  a  century  ago.  The  furniture 


60          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

and  adornments  occupy  their  original  posi- 
tions, and  the  plush  on  the  walls  has  not 
been  replaced  by  other  hangings.  In  the 
hall  —  deep  enough  for  the  traditional  duel 
of  baronial  romance  —  are  full-length  por- 
traits of  the  several  governors  and  sundry 
of  their  kinsfolk. 

There  is  yet  a  third  Wentworth  house, 
also  decorated  with  the  shade  of  a  colonial 
governor  —  there  were  three  Governors 
Wentworth  —  but  we  shall  pass  it  by, 
though  out  of  no  lack  of  respect  for  that 
high  official  personage  whose  commission 
was  signed  by  Joseph  Addison,  Esq.,  Sec- 
retary of  State  under  George  L 


OLD    STBAWBEREY   BANK 

THESE  old  houses  have  perhaps  detained 
MS  too  long.  They  are  merely  the  crumbling 
shells  of  things  dead  and  gone,  of  persons 
and  manners  and  customs  that  have  left  no 
very  distinct  record  of  themselves,  excepting 
here  and  there  in  some  sallow  manuscript 
which  has  luckily  escaped  the  withering 
breath  of  fire,  for  the  old  town,  as  I  have 
remarked,  has  managed,  from  the  earliest 
moment  of  its  existence,  to  burn  itself  up 
periodically.  It  is  only  through  the  scat- 
tered memoranda  of  ancient  town  clerks,  and 
in  the  files  of  worm-eaten  and  forgotten 
newspapers,  that  we  are  enabled  to  get 
glimpses  of  that  life  which  was  once  so  real 
and  positive  and  has  now  become  a  shadow. 
I  am  of  course  speaking  of  the  early  days  of 


62          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

the  settlement  on  Strawberry  Bank.  They 
were  stormy  and  eventful  days.  The  dense 
forest  which  surrounded  the  clearing  was 
alive  with  hostile  red-men.  The  sturdy  pil- 
grim went  to  sleep  with  his  firelock  at  his  bed- 
side, not  knowing  at  what  moment  he  might 
be  awakened  by  the  glare  of  his  burning  hay- 
ricks and  the  piercing  war-whoop  of  the 
Womponoags.  Year  after  year  he  saw  his 
harvest  reaped  by  a  sickle  of  flame,  as  he 
peered  through  the  loop-holes  of  the  block- 
house, whither  he  had  flown  hi  hot  haste  with 
goodwife  and  little  ones.  The  blockhouse 
at  Strawberry  Bank  appears  to  have  been 
on  an  extensive  scale,  with  stockades  for  the 
shelter  of  cattle.  It  held  large  supplies  of 
stores,  and  was  amply  furnished  with  arque- 
buses, sakers,  and  murtherers,  a  species  of 
naval  ordnance  which  probably  did  not  belie 
its  name.  It  also  boasted,  we  are  told,  of 
two  drums  for  training-days,  and  no  fewer 
than  fifteen  hautboys  and  soft-voiced  re- 
corders—  all  which  suggests  a  mediaeval 
castle,  or  a  grim  fortress  in  the  time  of 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          63 

Queen  Elizabeth.  To  the  younger  members 
of  the  community  glass  or  crockery  ware 
was  an  unknown  substance ;  to  the  elders  it 
was  a  memory.  An  iron  pot  was  the  pot- 
of-all-work,  and  their  table  utensils  were 
of  beaten  pewter.  The^diet  was  also  of  the 
simplest  —  pea-porridge  and  corn-cake,  with 
a  mug  of  ale  or  a  flagon  of  Spanish  wine, 
when  they  could  get  it. 

John  Mason,  who  never  resided  in  this 
country,  but  delegated  the  management  of 
his  plantation  at  Piscataqua  and  Newiche- 
wannock  to  stewards,  died  before  realizing 
any  appreciable  return  from  his  enterprise. 
He  spared  no  endeavor  meanwhile  to  fur- 
ther its  prosperity.  In  1632,  three  years 
before  his  death,  Mason  sent  over  from 
Denmark  a  number  of  neat  cattle,  "of  a 
large  breed  and  yellow  colour."  The  herd 
thrived,  and  it  is  said  that  some  of  the  stock 
is  still  extant  on  farms  in  the  vicinity  of 
Portsmouth.  Those  old  first  families  had 
a  kind  of  staying  quality ! 

In   May,   1653,   the   inhabitants   of    the 


64         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

settlement  petitioned  the  General  Court  at 
Boston  to  grant  them  a  definite  township  — 
for  the  boundaries  were  doubtful  —  and  the 
right  to  give  it  a  proper  name.  "  Whereas 
the  name  of  this  plantation  att  present  be- 
ing Strabery  Banke^  accidentally  soe  called, 
by  reason  of  a  banke  where  straberries  was 
found  in  this  place,  now  we  humbly  desire 
to  have  it  called  Portsmouth,  being  a  name 
most  suitable  for  this  place,  it  being  the 
river's  mouth,  and  good  as  any  in  this  land, 
and  your  petit'rs  shall  humbly  pray,"  etc. 

Throughout  that  formative  period,  and 
during  the  intermittent  French  wars,  Ports- 
mouth and  the  outlying  districts  were  the 
scenes  of  many  bloody  Indian  massacres. 
No  portion  of  the  New  England  colony  suf- 
fered more.  Famine,  fire,  pestilence,  and 
war,  each  in  its  turn,  and  sometimes  in  con- 
junction, beleaguered  the  little  stronghold, 
and  threatened  to  wipe  it  out.  But  that 
was  not  to  be. 

The  settlement  flourished  and  increased 
in  spite  of  all,  and  as  soon  as  it  had  leisure 


HALLWAY  IN  THE  GOVERNOR  BENNING  WENTWORTH 
HOUSE 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          65 

to  draw  breath,  it  bethought  itself  of  the 
school-house  and  the  jail  —  two  incontestable 
signs  of  budding  civilization.  At  a  town 
meeting  in  1662,  it  was  ordered  "  that  a  cage 
be  made  or  some  other  meanes  invented  by 
the  selectmen  to  punish  such  as  sleepe  or 
take  tobacco  on  the  Lord's  day  out  of  the 
meetinge  in  the  time  of  publique  service." 
This  salutary  measure  was  not,  for  some 
reason,  carried  into  effect  until  nine  years 
later,  when  Captain  John  Pickering,  who 
seems  to  have  had  as  many  professions  as 
Michelangelo,  undertook  to  construct  a  cage 
twelve  feet  square  and  seven  feet  high,  with 
a  pillory  on  top ;  "  the  said  Pickering  to 
make  a  good  strong  dore  and  make  a  sub- 
stantiale  payre  of  stocks  and  place  the  same 
in  said  cage."  A  spot  conveniently  near 
the  west  end  of  the  meeting-house  was  se- 
lected as  the  site  for  this  ingenious  device. 
It  is  more  than  probable  that  "the  said 
Pickering"  indirectly  furnished  an  occa- 
sional bird  for  his  cage,  for  in  1672  we  find 
him  and  one  Edward  Westwere  authorized 


66          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

by  the  selectmen  to  "  keepe  houses  of  pub- 
lique  entertainment."  He  was  a  versatile 
individual,  this  John  Pickering  —  soldier, 
miller,  moderator,  carpenter,  lawyer,  and 
innkeeper.  Michelangelo  need  not  blush 
to  be  bracketed  with  him.  In  the  course  of 
a  long  and  variegated  career  he  never  failed 
to  act  according  to  his  lights,  which  he 
always  kept  well  trimmed.  That  Captain 
Pickering  subsequently  became  the  grand- 
father, at  several  removes,  of  the  present 
writer  was  no  fault  of  the  Captain's,  and 
should  not  be  laid  up  against  him. 

Down  to  1696,  the  education  of  the  young 
appears  to  have  been  a  rather  desultory  and 
tentative  matter ;  "  the  young  idea  "  seems 
to  have  been  allowed  to  "shoot"  at  what- 
ever it  wanted  to ;  but  in  that  year  it  was 
voted  "that  care  be  taken  that  an  abell 
scollmaster  [skullmaster !]  be  provided  for 
the  towen  as  the  law  directs,  not  visions  in 
conversation."  That  was  perhaps  demand- 
ing too  much ;  for  it  was  not  until  "  May  ye 
7  "  of  the  following  year  that  the  selectmen 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          67 

were  fortunate  enough  to  put  their  finger  on 
this  rara  avis  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Tho. 
Phippes,  who  agreed  "  to  be  scollmaster  for 
the  towen  this  yr  insewing  for  teaching  the 
inhabitants  children  in  such  manner  as  other 
schollmasters  yously  doe  throughout  the 
countrie :  for  his  soe  doinge  we  the  sellectt 
men  in  behalfe  of  ower  towen  doe  ingage  to 
pay  him  by  way  of  rate  twenty  pounds  and 
yt  he  shall  and  may  reserve  from  every 
father  or  master  that  sends  theyer  children 
to  school  this  yeare  after  ye  rate  of  16  s.  for 
readers,  writers  and  cypherers  20  s.,  Lattin- 
ers24s." 

Modern  advocates  of  phonetic  spelling 
need  not  plume  themselves  on  their  origi- 
nality. The  town  clerk  who  wrote  that  de- 
licious "  yously  doe  "  settles  the  question. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  Mr.  Tho.  Phippes 
was  not  only  "  not  visions  in  conversation," 
but  was  more  conventional  in  his  orthog- 
raphy. He  evidently  gave  satisfaction,  and 
clearly  exerted  an  influence  on  the  town 
clerk,  Mr.  Samuel  Keais,  who  ever  after 


68          AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

shows  a  marked  improvement  in  his  own 
methods.  In  1704  the  town  empowered  the 
selectmen  "  to  call  and  settell  a  gramer  scoll 
according  to  ye  best  of  yower  judgment  and 
for  ye  advantag  [Keais  is  obviously  dead 
now]  of  ye  youth  of  ower  town  to  learn 
them  to  read  from  ye  primer,  to  wright  and 
sypher  and  to  learne  ym  the  tongues  and 
good-manners."  On  this  occasion  it  was 
Mr.  William  Allen,  of  Salisbury,  who  en- 
gaged "dilligently  to  attend  ye  school  for 
ye  present  yeare,  and  tech  all  children  yt 
can  read  in  thaire  psallters  and  upward." 
From  such  humble  beginnings  were  evolved 
some  of  the  best  public  high  schools  at  pres- 
ent in  New  England. 

Portsmouth  did  not  escape  the  witchcraft 
delusion,  though  I  believe  that  no  hangings 
took  place  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
township.  Dwellers  by  the  sea  are  generally 
superstitious ;  sailors  always  are.  There  is 
something  in  the  illimitable  expanse  of  sky 
and  water  that  dilates  the  imagination. 
The  folk  who  live  along  the  coast  live  on 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          69 

the  edge  of  a  perpetual  mystery;  only  a 
strip  of  yellow  sand  or  gray  rock  separates 
them  from  the  unknown ;  they  hear  strange 
voices  in  the  winds  at  midnight,  they  are 
haunted  by  the  spectres  of  the  mirage. 
Their  minds  quickly  take  the  impress  of  un- 
canny things.  The  witches  therefore  found 
a  sympathetic  atmosphere  in  Newcastle,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Piscataqua  —  that  slender 
paw  of  land  which  reaches  out  into  the  ocean 
and  terminates  in  a  spread  of  sharp,  flat 
rocks,  like  the  claws  of  an  amorous  cat. 
What  happened  to  the  good  folk  of  that 
picturesque  little  fishing-hamlet  is  worth  re- 
telling in  brief.  In  order  properly  to  retell 
it,  a  contemporary  witness  shall  be  called 
upon  to  testify  in  the  case  of  the  Stone- 
Throwing  Devils  of  Newcastle.  It  is  the 
Rev.  Cotton  Mather  who  addresses  you  — 

"  On  June  11,  1682,  showers  of  stones 
were  thrown  by  an  invisible  hand  upon  the 
house  of  George  Walton  at  Portsmouth 
[Newcastle  was  then  a  part  of  the  town]. 
Whereupon  the  people  going  out  found  the 


70         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

gate  wrung  off  the  hinges,  and  stones  flying 
and  falling  thick  about  them,  and  striking 
of  them  seemingly  with  a  great  force,  but 
really  affecting  'em  no  more  than  if  a  soft 
touch  were  given  them.  The  glass  windows 
were  broken  by  stones  that  came  not  from 
without,  but  from  within ;  and  other  instru- 
ments were  in  a  like  manner  hurled  about. 
Nine  of  the  stones  they  took  up,  whereof 
some  were  as  hot  as  if  they  came  out  of  the 
fire;  and  marking  them  they  laid  them  on 
the  table ;  but  in  a  little  while  they  found 
some  of  them  again  flying  about.  The  spit 
was  carried  up  the  chimney,  and  coming 
down  with  the  point  forward,  stuck  in  the 
back  log,  from  whence  one  of  the  company 
removing  it,  it  was  by  an  invisible  hand 
thrown  out  at  the  window.  This  disturb- 
ance continued  from  day  to  day ;  and  some- 
times a  dismal  hollow  whistling  would  be 
heard,  and  sometimes  the  trotting  and 
snorting  of  a  horse,  but  nothing  to  be  seen. 
The  man  went  up  the  Great  Bay  in  a  boat 
on  to  a  farm  which  he  had  there ;  but  there 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          71 

the  stones  found  him  out,  and  carrying 
from  the  house  to  the  boat  a  stirrup  iron 
the  iron  came  jingling  after  him  through 
the  woods  as  far  as  his  house ;  and  at  last 
went  away  and  was  heard  no  more.  The 
anchor  leaped  overboard  several  times  and 
stopt  the  boat.  A  cheese  was  taken  out  of 
the  press,  and  crumbled  all  over  the  floor; 
a  piece  of  iron  stuck  into  the  wall,  and  a 
kettle  hung  thereon.  Several  cocks  of  hay, 
mow'd  near  the  house,  were  taken  up  and 
hung  upon  the  trees,  and  others  made  into 
small  whisps,  and  scattered  about  the  house. 
A  man  was  much  hurt  by  some  of  the  stones. 
He  was  a  Quaker,  and  suspected  that  a 
woman,  who  charged  him  with  injustice  in 
detaining  some  land  from  her,  did,  by  witch- 
craft, occasion  these  preternatural  occur- 
rences. However,  at  last  they  came  to  an 
end." 

Now  I  have  done  with  thee,  0  credulous 
and  sour  Cotton  Mather !  so  get  thee  back 
again  to  thy  tomb  in  the  old  burying-ground 
on  Copp's  Hill,  where,  unless  thy  nature  is 


72         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

radically  changed,  thou  makest    it    uncom- 
fortable for  those  about  thee. 

Nearly  a  hundred  years  afterward,  Ports- 
mouth had  another  witch  —  a  tangible  witch 
in  this  instance  —  one  Molly  Bridget,  who 
cast  her  malign  spell  on  the  eleemosynary 
pigs  at  the  Almshouse,  where  she  chanced 
to  reside  at  the  moment.  The  pigs  were 
manifestly  bewitched,  and  Mr.  Clement 
March,  the  superintendent  of  the  institution, 
saw  only  one  remedy  at  hand,  and  that  was 
to  cut  off  and  burn  the  tips  of  their  tails. 
But  when  the  tips  were  cut  off  they  disap- 
peared, and  it  was  in  consequence  quite  im- 
practicable to  burn  them.  Mr.  March,  who 
was  a  gentleman  of  expedients,  ordered  that 
all  the  chips  and  underbrush  in  the  yard 
should  be  made  into  heaps  and  consumed, 
hoping  thus  to  catch  and  do  away  with  the 
mysterious  and  provoking  extremities.  The 
fires  were  no  sooner  lighted  than  Molly 
Bridget  rushed  from  room  to  room  in  a  state 
of  frenzy.  With  the  dying  flames  her  own 
vitality  subsided,  and  she  was  dead  before 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          73 

the  ash-piles  were  cool.  I  say  it  seriously 
when  I  say  that  these  are  facts  of  which 
there  is  authentic  proof. 

If  the  woman  had  recovered,  she  would 
have  fared  badly,  even  at  that  late  period, 
had  she  been  in  Salem ;  but  the  death-pen- 
alty has  never  been  hastily  inflicted  in 
Portsmouth.  The  first  execution  that  ever 
took  place  there  was  that  of  Sarah  Simpson 
and  Penelope  Kenny,  for  the  murder  of  an 
infant  in  1739.  The  sheriff  was  Thomas 
Packer,  the  same  official  who,  twenty-nine 
years  later,  won  unenviable  notoriety  at  the 
hanging  of  Ruth  Blay.  The  circumstances 
are  set  forth  by  the  late  Albert  Laighton  in 
a  spirited  ballad,  which  is  too  long  to  quote 
in  full.  The  following  stanzas,  however, 
give  the  pith  of  the  story  — 

"  And  a  voice  among  them  shouted, 
'  Pause  before  the  deed  is  done  ; 
We  have  asked  reprieve  and  pardon 
For  the  poor  misguided  one.' 

"  But  these  words  of  Sheriff  Packer 
Rang  above  the  swelling  noise  : 


74         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

'Must  I  wait  and  lose  my  dinner  ? 
Draw  away  the  cart,  my  boys  1 ' 

"  Nearer  came  the  sound  and  loader, 
Till  a  steed  with  panting  breath, 
From  its  sides  the  white  foam  dripping, 
Halted  at  the  scene  of  death ; 

"  And  a  messenger  alighted, 

Crying  to  the  crowd,  '  Make  way ! 
This  I  bear  to  Sheriff  Packer ; 
'T  is  a  pardon  for  Ruth  Blay  I ' " 

But  of  course  he  arrived  too  late  —  the 
Law  led  Mercy  about  twenty  minutes.  The 
crowd  dispersed,  horror-stricken ;  but  it  as- 
sembled again  that  night  before  the  sheriff's 
domicile  and  expressed  its  indignation  in 
groans.  His  effigy,  hanged  on  a  miniature 
gallows,  was  afterward  paraded  through  the 
streets. 

"  Be  the  name  of  Thomas  Packer 
A  reproach  forevennore  I  " 

Laighton's  ballad  reminds  me  that  Ports- 
mouth has  been  prolific  in  poets,  one  of 
whom,  at  least,  has  left  a  mouthful  of  peren- 
nial rhyme  for  orators  —  Jonathan  Sewell 
with  his 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          75 

"  No  pent-up  Utica  contracts  your  powers, 
But  the  whole  boundless  continent  is  yours." 

I  have  somewhere  seen  a  volume  with  the 
alliterative  title  of  "  Poets  of  Portsmouth," 
in  which  are  embalmed  no  fewer  than  sixty 
immortals ! 

But  to  drop  into  prose  again,  and  have 
done  with  this  iliad  of  odds  and  ends. 
Portsmouth  has  the  honor,  I  believe,  of 
establishing  the  first  recorded  pauper  work- 
house—  though  not  in  connection  with  her 
poets,  as  might  naturally  be  supposed.  The 
building  was  completed  and  tenanted  in 
1716.  Seven  years  later,  an  act  was  passed 
in  England  authorizing  the  establishment  of 
parish  workhouses  there.  The  first  and  only 
keeper  of  the  Portsmouth  almshouse  up  to 
1750  was  a  woman  —  Rebecca  Austin. 

Speaking  of  first  things,  we  are  told  by 
Mr.  Nathaniel  Adams,  in  his  "Annals  of 
Portsmouth,"  that  on  the  20th  of  April, 
1761,  Mr.  John  Stavers  began  running  a 
stage  from  that  town  to  Boston.  The  car- 
riage was  a  two-horse  curricle,  wide  enough 


76        AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

to  accommodate  three  passengers.  The  fare 
was  thirteen  shillings  and  sixpence  sterling 
per  head.  The  curricle  was  presently  super- 
seded by  a  series  of  fat  yellow  coaches,  one 
of  which  —  nearly  a  century  later,  and  long 
after  that  pleasant  mode  of  travel  had  fallen 
obsolete  —  was  the  cause  of  much  mental 
tribulation  *  to  the  writer  of  this  chronicle. 
The  mail  and  the  newspaper  are  closely 
associated  factors  in  civilization,  so  I  men- 
tion them  together,  though  in  this  case  the 
newspaper  antedated  the  mail-coach  about 
five  years.  On  October  7,  1756,  the  first 
number  of  "The  New  Hampshire  Gazette 
and  Historical  Chronicle"  was  issued  in 
Portsmouth  from  the  press  of  Daniel  Fowle, 
who  in  the  previous  July  had  removed  from 
Boston,  where  he  had  undergone  a  brief  but 
uncongenial  imprisonment  on  suspicion  of 
having  printed  a  pamphlet  entitled  "The 
Monster  of  Monsters,  by  Tom  Thumb, 

1  Some  idle  reader  here  and  there  may  possibly  recall 
the  burning  of  the  old  stage-coach  in  The  Story  of  a  Bad 
Boy. 


(ZJ 


I  J 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          77 

Esq.,"  an  essay  that  contained  some  uncom- 
plimentary reflections  on  several  official  per- 
sonages. The  "  Gazette  "  was  the  pioneer 
journal  of  the  province.  It  was  followed  at 
the  close  of  the  same  year  by  "  The  Mer- 
cury and  Weekly  Advertiser,"  published  by 
a  former  apprentice  of  Fowle,  a  certain 
Thomas  Furber,  backed  by  a  number  of 
restless  Whigs,  who  considered  the  "  Ga- 
zette" not  sufficiently  outspoken  in  the 
cause  of  liberty.  Mr.  Fowle,  however,  con- 
trived to  hold  his  own  until  the  day  of  his 
death.  Fowle  had  for  pressman  a  faithfid 
negro  named  Primus,  a  full-blooded  African. 
Whether  Primus  was  a  freeman  or  a  slave 
I  am  unable  to  state.  He  lived  to  a  great 
age,  and  was  a  prominent  figure  among  the 
people  of  his  own  color. 

Negro  slavery  was  common  in  New  Eng- 
land at  that  period.  In  1767,  Portsmouth 
numbered  in  its  population  a  hundred  and 
eighty-eight  slaves,  male  and  female.  Their 
bondage,  happily,  was  nearly  always  of  a 
light  sort,  if  any  bondage  can  be  light. 


78         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

They  were  allowed  to  have  a  kind  of  gov- 
ernment of  their  own;  indeed,  were  en- 
couraged to  do  so,  and  no  unreasonable 
restrictions  were  placed  on  their  social  enjoy- 
ment. They  annually  elected  a  king  and 
counselors,  and  celebrated  the  event  with  a 
procession.  The  aristocratic  feeling  was 
highly  developed  in  them.  The  rank  of  the 
master  was  the  slave's  rank.  There  was  a 
great  deal  of  ebony  standing  around  on  its 
dignity  in  those  days.  For  example,  Gov- 
ernor Langdon's  manservant,  Cyrus  Bruce, 
was  a  person  who  insisted  on  his  distinction, 
and  it  was  recognized.  His  massive  gold 
chain  and  seals,  his  cherry-colored  small- 
clothes and  silk  stockings,  his  ruffles  and 
silver  shoe-buckles,  were  a  tradition  long 
after  Cyrus  himself  was  pulverized. 

In  cases  of  minor  misdemeanor  among 
them,  the  negroes  themselves  were  permitted 
to  be  judge  and  jury.  Their  administration 
of  justice  was  often  characteristically  nai've. 
Mr.  Brewster  gives  an  amusing  sketch  of  one 
of  their  sessions.  King  Nero  is  on  the  bench, 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          79 

and  one  Cato  —  we  are  nothing  if  not  clas- 
sical —  is  the  prosecuting  attorney.  The 
name  of  the  prisoner  and  the  nature  of  his 
offense  are  not  disclosed  to  posterity.  In 
the  midst  of  the  proceedings  the  hour  of  noon 
is  clanged  from  the  neighboring  belfry  of  the 
Old  North  Church.  "  The  evidence  was  not 
gone  through  with,  but  the  servants  could 
stay  no  longer  from  their  home  duties. 
They  all  wanted  to  see  the  whipping,  but 
could  not  conveniently  be  present  again 
after  dinner.  Cato  ventured  to  address  the 
King:  Please  your  Honor,  best  let  the  fel- 
low have  his  whipping  now,  and  finish  the 
trial  after  dinner.  The  request  seemed  to 
be  the  general  wish  of  the  company:  so 
Nero  ordered  ten  lashes,  for  justice  so  far 
as  the  trial  went,  and  ten  more  at  the  close 
of  the  trial,  should  he  be  found  guilty  !  " 

Slavery  in  New  Hampshire  was  never 
legally  abolished,  unless  Abraham  Lincoln 
did  it.  The  State  itself  has  not  ever  pro- 
nounced any  emancipation  edict.  During 
the  Revolutionary  War  the  slaves  wera 


80         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

gradually  emancipated  by  their  masters. 
That  many  of  the  negroes,  who  had  grown 
gray  in  service,  refused  their  freedom,  and 
elected  to  spend  the  rest  of  their  lives  as 
pensioners  in  the  families  of  their  late  own- 
ers, is  a  circumstance  that  illustrates  the 
kindly  ties  which  held  between  slave  and 
master  in  the  old  colonial  days  in  New 
England. 

The  institution  was  accidental  and  super- 
ficial, and  never  had  any  real  root  in  the 
Granite  State.  If  the  Puritans  could  have 
found  in  the  Scriptures  any  direct  sanction 
of  slavery,  perhaps  it  would  have  continued 
awhile  longer,  for  the  Puritan  carried  his 
religion  into  the  business  affairs  of  life ; 
he  was  not  even  able  to  keep  it  out  of  his 
bills  of  lading.  I  cannot  close  this  ram- 
bling chapter  more  appropriately  and  sol- 
emnly than  by  quoting  from  one  of  those 
same  pious  bills  of  lading.  It  is  dated  June, 
1726,  and  reads :  "  Shipped  by  the  grace 
of  God  in  good  order  and  well  conditioned, 
by  Win.  Pepperills  on  there  own  acct.  and 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          81 

risque,  in  and  upon  the  good  Briga  called 
the  William,  whereof  is  master  under  God 
for  this  present  voyage  George  King,  now 
riding  at  anchor  in  the  river  Piscataqua  and 
by  God's  grace  bound  to  Barbadoes."  Here 
follows  a  catalogue  of  the  miscellaneous 
cargo,  rounded  off  with :  "  And  so  God  send 
the  good  Briga  to  her  desired  port  in  safety. 
Amen," 


VI 

SOME  OLD  PORTSMOUTH  PROFILES 

I  DOUBT  if  any  New  England  town  ever 
turned  out  so  many  eccentric  characters  as 
Portsmouth.  From  1640  down  to  about 
1848  there  must  have  been  something  in  the 
air  of  the  place  that  generated  eccentricity. 
In  another  chapter  I  shall  explain  why  the 
conditions  have  not  been  favorable  to  the 
development  of  individual  singularity  during 
the  latter  half  of  the  present  century.  It  is 
easier  to  do  that  than  fully  to  account  for 
the  numerous  queer  human  types  which  have 
existed  from  time  to  time  previous  to  that 
period. 

In  recently  turning  over  the  pages  of  Mr. 
Brewster's  entertaining  collection  of  Ports- 
mouth sketches,  I  have  been  struck  by  the 
number  and  variety  of  the  odd  men  and 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          83 

women  who  appear  incidentally  on  the  scene. 
They  are,  in  the  author's  intention,  secondary 
figures  in  the  background  of  his  landscape, 
but  they  stand  very  much  in  the  foreground 
of  one's  memory  after  the  book  is  laid  aside. 
One  finds  one's  self  thinking  quite  as  often 
of  that  squalid  old  hut-dweller  up  by  Saga- 
more Creek  as  of  General  Washington,  who 
visited  the  town  in  1789.  Conservatism  and 
respectability  have  their  values,  certainly; 
but  has  not  the  unconventional  its  values 
also?  If  we  render  unto  that  old  hut- 
dweller  the  things  which  are  that  old  hut- 
dweller's,  we  must  concede  him  his  pictur- 
esqueness.  He  was  dirty,  and  he  was  not 
respectable ;  but  he  is  picturesque  —  now 
that  he  is  dead. 

If  the  reader  has  five  or  ten  minutes  to 
waste,  I  invite  him  to  glance  at  a  few  old 
profiles  of  persons  who,  however  substantial 
they  once  were,  are  now  leading  a  life  of 
mere  outlines.  I  would  like  to  give  them  a 
less  faded  expression,  but  the  past  is  very 
chary  of  yielding  up  anything  more  than  its 
ihadows. 


84         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

The  first  who  presents  himself  is  the  rumi- 
native hermit  already  mentioned  —  a  species 
of  uninspired  Thoreau.  His  name  was 
Benjamin  Lear.  So  far  as  his  craziness 
went,  he  might  have  been  a  lineal  descendant 
of  that  ancient  king  of  Britain  who  figures 
on  Shakespeare's  page.  Family  dissensions 
made  a  recluse  of  King  Lear;  but  in  the 
case  of  Benjamin  there  were  no  mitigating 
circumstances.  He  had  no  family  to  trouble 
him,  and  his  realm  remained  undivided. 
He  owned  an  excellent  farm  on  the  south 
side  of  Sagamore  Creek,  a  little  to  the  west 
of  the  bridge,  and  might  have  lived  at  ease, 
if  personal  comfort  had  not  been  distasteful 
to  him.  Personal  comfort  entered  into  no 
plan  of  Lear's.  To  be  alone  filled  the  little 
pint-measure  of  his  desire.  He  ensconced 
himself  in  a  wretched  shanty,  and  barred 
the  door,  figuratively,  against  all  the  world. 
Wealth  —  what  would  have  been  wealth  to 
him  —  lay  within  his  reach,  but  he  thrust 
it  aside  ;  he  disdained  luxury  as  he  disdained 
idleness,  and  made  no  compromise  with  con- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  TEE  SEA          85 

vention.  When  a  man  cuts  himself  abso- 
lutely adrift  from  custom,  what  an  astonish- 
ingly light  spar  floats  him !  How  few  his 
wants  are,  after  all!  Lear  was  of  a  cheer- 
ful disposition,  and  seems  to  have  been 
wholly  inoffensive  —  at  a  distance.  He  fab- 
ricated his  own  clothes,  and  subsisted  chiefly 
on  milk  and  potatoes,  the  product  of  his 
realm.  He  needed  nothing  but  an  island  to 
be  a  Robinson  Crusoe.  At  rare  intervals  he 
flitted  like  a  frost-bitten  apparition  through 
the  main  street  of  Portsmouth,  which  he 
always  designated  as  "  the  Bank,"  a  name 
that  had  become  obsolete  fifty  or  a  hundred 
years  before.  Thus,  for  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  Benjamin  Lear  stood  aloof  from 
human  intercourse.  In  his  old  age  some 
of  the  neighbors  offered  him  shelter  during 
the  tempestuous  winter  months ;  but  he 
would  have  none  of  it  —  he  defied  wind  and 
weather.  There  he  lay  in  his  dilapidated 
hovel  in  his  last  illness,  refusing  to  allow 
any  one  to  remain  with  him  overnight  — 
and  the  mercury  four  degrees  below  zero. 


86         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

Lear  was  born  in  1720,  and  vegetated  eighty- 
two  years. 

I  take  it  that  Timothy  Winn,  of  whom 
we  have  only  a  glimpse,  and  would  like  to 
have  more,  was  a  person  better  worth  know- 
ing. His  name  reads  like  the  title  of  some 
old-fashioned  novel  —  "  Timothy  Winn,  or 
the  Memoirs  of  a  Bashful  Gentleman."  He 
came  to  Portsmouth  from  Woburn  at  the 
close  of  the  last  century,  and  set  up  in  the 
old  museum-building  on  Mulberry  Street 
what  was  called  "  a  piece  goods  store."  He 
was  the  third  Timothy  in  his  monotonous 
family,  and  in  order  to  differentiate  himself 
he  inscribed  on  the  sign  over  his  shop  door, 
"  Timothy  Winn,  3d,"  and  was  ever  after 
called  "  Three-Penny  Winn."  That  he  en- 
joyed the  pleasantry,  and  clung  to  his  sign, 
goes  to  show  that  he  was  a  person  who 
would  ripen  on  further  acquaintance,  were 
further  acquaintance  now  practicable.  His 
next-door  neighbor,  Mr.  Leonard  Serat,  who 
kept  a  modest  tailoring  establishment,  also 
tantalizes  us  a  little  with  a  dim  intimation 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         87 

of  originality.  He  plainly  was  without  lit- 
erary prejudices,  for  on  one  face  of  his 
swinging  sign  was  painted  the  word  Taylor, 
and  on  the  other  Tailor.  This  may  have 
been  a  delicate  concession  to  that  part  of 
the  community  —  the  greater  part,  probably 
—  which  would  have  spelled  it  with  a  y. 

The  building  in  which  Messrs.  Winn  and 
Serat  had  their  shops  was  the  property  of 
Nicholas  Eousselet,  a  French  gentleman  of 
Demerara,  the  story  of  whose  unconven- 
tional courtship  of  Miss  Catherine  Moffatt 
is  pretty  enough  to  bear  retelling,  and  en- 
titles him  to  a  place  in  our  limited  collection 
of  etchings.  M.  Rousselet  had  doubtless 
already  made  excursions  into  the  pays  de 
tendre,  and  given  Miss  Catherine  previous 
notice  of  the  state  of  his  heart,  but  it  was 
not  until  one  day  during  the  hour  of  service 
at  the  Episcopal  church  that  he  brought 
matters  to  a  crisis  by  handing  to  Miss 
Moffatt  a  small  Bible,  on  the  fly-leaf  of 
which  he  had  penciled  the  fifth  verse  of  the 
Second  Epistle  of  John  — 


88         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

u  And  now  I  beseech  thee,  lady,  not  as  though  I 
wrote  a  new  commandment  unto  thee,  but  that 
which  we  had  from  the  beginning,  that  we  love  one 
another." 

This  was  not  to  be  resisted,  at  least  not  by 
Miss  Catherine,  who  demurely  handed  the 
volume  back  to  him  with  a  page  turned 
down  at  the  sixteenth  verse  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Ruth  — 

"  Whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go  ;  and  where  thou 
lodgest,  I  will  lodge:  thy  people  shall  be  my  peo- 
ple, and  thy  God  my  God  :  where  thou  diest,  will 
I  die,  and  there  will  I  be  buried  :  the  Lord  do  so 
to  me,  and  more  also,  if  aught  but  death  part  thee 
and  me." 

Aside  from  this  quaint  touch  of  romance, 
what  attaches  me  to  the  happy  pair  —  for 
the  marriage  was  a  fortunate  one  —  is  the 
fact  that  the  Rousselets  made  their  home  in 
the  old  Atkinson  mansion,  which  stood  di- 
rectly opposite  my  grandfather's  house  on 
Court  Street  and  was  torn  down  in  my  child- 
hood, to  my  great  consternation.  The  build- 
ing had  been  unoccupied  for  a  quarter  of  a 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          89 

century,  and  was  fast  falling  into  decay  with 
all  its  rich  wood-carvings  at  cornice  and 
lintel ;  but  was  it  not  full  of  ghosts,  and  if 
the  old  barracks  were  demolished,  would 
not  these  ghosts,  or  some  of  them  at  least, 
take  refuge  in  my  grandfather's  house  just 
across  the  way  ?  Where  else  could  they  be- 
stow themselves  so  conveniently?  While 
the  ancient  mansion  was  in  process  of  de- 
struction, I  used  to  peep  round  the  corner 
of  our  barn  at  the  workmen,  and  watch  the 
indignant  phantoms  go  soaring  upward  in 
spiral  clouds  of  colonial  dust. 

A  lady  differing  in  many  ways  from 
Catherine  Moffatt  was  the  Mary  Atkinson 
(once  an  inmate  of  this  same  manor  house) 
who  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Rev.  William 
Shurtleff,  pastor  of  the  South  Church  be- 
tween 1733  and  1747.  From  the  worldly 
standpoint,  it  was  a  fine  match  for  the  New- 
castle clergyman  —  beauty,  of  the  eagle- 
beaked  kind  ;  wealth,  her  share  of  the  family 
plate ;  high  birth,  a  sister  to  the  Hon.  Theo- 
dore Atkinson.  But  if  the  exemplary  man 


90         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

had  cast  his  eyes  lower,  peradventure  he  had 
found  more  happiness,  though  ill-bred  per- 
sons without  family  plate  are  not  necessarily 
amiable.  Like  Socrates,  this  long-suffering 
divine  had  always  with  him  an  object  on 
which  to  cultivate  heavenly  patience,  and 
patience,  says  the  Eastern  proverb,  is  the 
key  of  content.  The  spirit  of  Xantippe 
seems  to  have  taken  possession  of  Mrs. 
Shurtleff  immediately  after  her  marriage. 
The  freakish  disrespect  with  which  she  used 
her  meek  consort  was  a  heavy  cross  to  bear 
at  a  period  in  New*  England  when  clerical 
dignity  was  at  its  highest  sensitive  point. 
Her  devices  for  torturing  the  poor  gentleman 
were  inexhaustible.  Now  she  lets  his  Sab- 
bath ruffs  go  unstarched;  now  she  scan- 
dalizes him  by  some  unseemly  and  frivolous 
color  in  her  attire ;  now  she  leaves  him  to 
cook  his  own  dinner  at  the  kitchen  coals ; 
and  now  she  locks  him  in  his  study,  whither 
he  has  retired  for  a  moment  or  two  of  prayer, 
previous  to  setting  forth  to  perform  the 
morning  service.  The  congregation  has  as- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         91 

Bembled;  the  sexton  has  tolled  the  bell 
twice  as  long  as  is  the  custom,  and  is  be- 
ginning a  third  carillon,  full  of  wonder  that 
his  reverence  does  not  appear  ;  and  there  sits 
Mistress  Shurtleff  in  the  family  pew  with  a 
face  as  complacent  as  that  of  the  cat  that 
has  eaten  the  canary.  Presently  the  deacons 
appeal  to  her  for  information  touching  the 
good  doctor.  Mistress  Shurtleff  sweetly 
tells  them  that  the  good  doctor  was  in  his 
study  when  she  left  home.  There  he  is 
found,  indeed,  and  released  from  durance, 
begging  the  deacons  to  keep  his  mortification 
secret,  to  "  give  it  an  understanding,  but  no 
tongue."  Such  was  the  discipline  undergone 
by  the  worthy  Dr.  Shurtleff  on  his  earthly 
pilgrimage.  A  portrait  of  this  patient  man 
—  now  a  saint  somewhere  —  hangs  in  the 
rooms  of  the  New  England  Historic  and 
Genealogical  Society  in  Boston.  There  he 
can  be  seen  in  surplice  and  bands,  with  his 
lamblike,  apostolic  face  looking  down  upon 
the  heavy  antiquarian  labors  of  his  busy 

descendants. 

, / 


92         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

Whether  or  not  a  man  is  to  be  classed  as 
eccentric  who  vanishes  without  rhyme  or 
reason  on  his  wedding-night  is  a  query  left 
to  the  reader's  decision.  We  seem  to  have 
struck  a  matrimonial  vein,  and  must  work  it 
out.  In  1768,  Mr.  James  McDonough  was 
one  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  Portsmouth, 
and  the  fortunate  suitor  for  the  hand  of  a 
daughter  of  Jacob  Sheafe,  a  town  magnate. 
The  home  of  the  bride  was  decked  and 
lighted  .for  the  nuptials,  the  banquet-table 
was  spread,  and  the  guests  were  gathered. 
The  minister  in  his  robe  stood  by  the  carven 
mantelpiece,  book  in  hand,  and  waited. 
Then  followed  an  awkward  interval  —  there 
was  a  hitch  somewhere.  A  strange  silence 
fell  upon  the  laughing  groups  ;  the  air  grew 
tense  with  expectation ;  in  the  pantry,  Amos 
Boggs,  the  butler,  in  his  agitation  spilt  a 
bottle  of  port  over  his  new  cinnamon-colored 
small-clothes.  Then  a  whisper  —  a  whis- 
per suppressed  these  twenty  minutes  —  ran 
through  the  apartments, — "  The  bridegroom 
has  not  come !  "  He  never  came.  The  mys- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         93 

tery  of  that  night  remains  a  mystery  after 
the  lapse  of  a  century  and  a  quarter. 

What  had  become  of  James  McDonough  ? 
The  assassination  of  so  notable  a  person  in 
a  community  where  every  strange  face  was 
challenged,  where  every  man's  antecedents 
were  known,  could  not  have  been  accom- 
plished without  leaving  some  slight  traces. 
Not  a  shadow  of  foul  play  was  discovered. 
That  McDonough  had  been  murdered  or 
had  committed  suicide  were  theories  accepted 
at  first  by  a  few,  and  then  by  no  one.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  was  in  love  with  his  fian- 
cee, he  had  wealth,  power,  position  —  why 
had  he  fled  ?  He  was  seen  a  moment  on  the 
public  street,  and  then  never  seen  again. 
It  was  as  if  he  had  turned  into  air.  Mean- 
while the  bewilderment  of  the  bride  was 
dramatically  painful.  If  McDonough  had 
been  waylaid  and  killed,  she  could  mourn 
for  him.  If  he  had  deserted  her,  she  could 
wrap  herself  in  her  pride.  But  neither 
course  lay  open  to  her,  then  or  afterward. 
In  one  of  the  Twice  Told  Tales  Hawthorne 


94         AN  OLD   TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

deals  with  a  man  named  Wakefield,  who 
disappears  with  like  suddenness,  and  lives 
unrecognized  for  twenty  years  in  a  street 
not  far  from  his  abandoned  hearthside. 
Such  expunging  of  one's  self  was  not  possi- 
ble in  Portsmouth ;  but  I  never  think  of 
McDonough  without  recalling  Wakefield. 
I  have  an  inexplicable  conviction  that  for 
many  a  year  James  McDonough,  in  some 
snug  ambush,  studied  and  analyzed  the  ef- 
fect of  his  own  startling  disappearance. 

Some  time  in  the  year  1758,  there  dawned 
upon  Portsmouth  a  personage  bearing  the 
ponderous  title  of  King's  Attorney,  and  car- 
rying much  gold  lace  about  him.  This 
gilded  gentleman  was  Mr.  Wyseman  Clagett, 
of  Bristol,  England,  where  his  father  dwelt 
on  the  manor  of  Broad  Oaks,  in  a  mansion 
with  twelve  chimneys,  and  kept  a  coach  and 
eight  or  ten  servants.  Up  to  the  moment 
of  his  advent  in  the  colonies,  Mr.  Wyseman 
Clagett  had  evidently  not  been  able  to  keep 
anything  but  himself.  His  wealth  consisted 
of  his  personal  decorations,  the  golden  frogs 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          95 

on  his  lapels,  and  the  tinsel  at  his  throat ; 
other  charms  he  had  none.  Yet  with  these 
he  contrived  to  dazzle  the  eyes  of  Lettice 
Mitchel,  one  of  the  young  beauties  of  the 
province,  and  to  cause  her  to  forget  that  she 
had  plighted  troth  with  a  Mr.  Warner,  then 
in  Europe,  and  destined  to  return  home  with 
a  disturbed  heart.  Mr.  Clagett  was  a  man 
of  violent  temper  and  ingenious  vindictive- 
ness,  and  proved  more  than  a  sufficient 
punishment  for  Lettice's  infidelity.  The 
trifling  fact  that  Warner  was  dead — he  died 
shortly  after  his  return  —  did  not  interfere 
with  the  course  of  Mr.  Clagett's  jealousy ;  he 
was  haunted  by  the  suspicion  that  Lettice 
regretted  her  first  love,  having  left  nothing 
undone  to  make  her  do  so.  "  This  is  to  pay 
Warner's  debts,"  remarked  Mr.  Clagett,  as 
he  twitched  off  the  table-cloth  and  wrecked 
the  tea-things. 

In  his  official  capacity  he  was  a  relent- 
less prosecutor.  The  noun  Clagett  speedily 
turned  itself  into  a  verb;  "to  Clagett" 
meant  "to  prosecute;"  they  were  convert- 


96         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

ible  terms.  In  spite  of  his  industrious 
severity,  and  his  royal  emoluments,  if  such 
existed,  the  exchequer  of  the  King's  Attor- 
ney showed  a  perpetual  deficit.  The  strat- 
agems to  which  he  resorted  from  time  to 
time  in  order  to  raise  unimportant  sums 
remind  one  of  certain  scenes  in  Moliere's 
comedies. 

Mr.  Clagett  had  for  his  ame  damnee  a 
constable  of  the  town.  They  were  made  for 
each  other;  they  were  two  flowers  with  but 
a  single  stem,  and  this  was  their  method 
of  procedure :  Mr.  Clagett  dispatched  one 
of  his  servants  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  some 
countryman  on  the  street,  or  some  sailor 
drinking  at  an  inn :  the  constable  arrested 
the  sailor  or  the  countryman,  as  the  case 
might  be,  and  hauled  the  culprit  before 
Mr.  Clagett ;  Mr.  Clagett  read  the  culprit 
a  moral  lesson,  and  fined  him  five  dollars 
and  costs.  The  plunder  was  then  divided 
between  the  conspirators  —  two  hearts  that 
beat  as  one  —  Clagett,  of  course,  getting  the 
lion's  share.  Justice  was  never  adminis- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA         97 

tered  in  a  simpler  manner  in  any  country. 
This  eminent  legal  light  was  extinguished  in 
1784,  and  the  wick  laid  away  in  the  little 
churchyard  at  Litchfield,  New  Hampshire. 
It  is  a  satisfaction,  even  after  such  a  lapse 
of  time,  to  know  that  Lettice  survived  the 
King's  Attorney  sufficiently  long  to  be 
very  happy  with  somebody  else.  Lettice 
Mitchel  was  scarcely  eighteen  when  she 
married  Wyseman  Clagett. 

About  eighty  years  ago,  a  witless  fellow 
named  Tilton  seems  to  have  been  a  familiar 
figure  on  the  streets  of  the  old  town.  Mr. 
Brewster  speaks  of  him  as  "  the  well-known 
idiot,  Johnny  Tilton,"  as  if  one  should  say, 
"  the  well-known  statesman,  Daniel  Web- 
ster." It  is  curious  to  observe  how  any  sort 
of  individuality  gets  magnified  in  this  paro- 
chial atmosphere,  where  everything  hicks 
perspective,  and  nothing  is  trivial.  Johnny 
Tilton  does  not  appear  to  have  had  much 
individuality  to  start  with ;  it  was  only  after 
his  head  was  cracked  that  he  showed  any 
shrewdness  whatever.  That  happened  early 


98         AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

in  his  unobtrusive  boyhood.  He  had  fre- 
quently watched  the  hens  flying  out  of  the 
loft  window  in  his  father's  stable,  which 
stood  in  the  rear  of  the  Old  Bell  Tavern. 
It  occurred  to  Johnny,  one  day,  that  though 
he  might  not  be  as  bright  as  other  lads,  he 
certainly  was  in  no  respect  inferior  to  a  hen. 
So  he  placed  himself  on  the  sill  of  the  win- 
dow in  the  loft,  flapped  his  arms,  and  took 
flight.  The  New  England  Icarus  alighted 
head  downward,  lay  insensible  for  a  while, 
and  was  henceforth  looked  upon  as  a  mortal 
who  had  lost  his  wits.  Yet  at  odd  moments 
his  cloudiness  was  illumined  by  a  gleam  of 
intelligence  such  as  had  not  been  detected 
in  him  previous  to  his  mischance.  As  Po- 
lonius  said  of  Hamlet  —  another  unstrung 
mortal  —  Tilton's  replies  had  "a  happiness 
that  often  madness  hits  on,  which  reason 
and  sanity  could  not  so  prosperously  be  de- 
livered of."  One  morning,  he  appeared  at 
the  flour-mill  with  a  sack  of  corn  to  be 
ground  for  the  almshouse,  and  was  asked 
what  he  knew.  "  Some  things  I  know,"  re- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA          99 

plied  poor  Tilton,  "  and  some  things  I  don't 
know.  I  know  the  miller's  hogs  grow  fat, 
but  I  don't  know  whose  corn  they  fat  on." 
To  borrow  another  word  from  Polonius, 
though  this  be  madness,  yet  there  was 
method  in  it.  Tilton  finally  brought  up  in 
the  almshouse,  where  he  was  allowed  the 
liberty  of  roaming  at  will  through  the  town. 
He  loved  the  water-side  as  if  he  had  had 
all  his  senses.  Often  he  was  seen  to  stand 
for  hours  with  a  sunny,  torpid  smile  on  his 
lips,  gazing  out  upon  the  river  where  its 
azure  ruffles  itself  into  silver  against  the 
islands.  He  always  wore  stuck  in  his  hat  a 
few  hen's  feathers,  perhaps  with  some  vague 
idea  of  still  associating  himself  with  the 
birds  of  the  air,  if  hens  can  come  into  that 
category. 

George  Jaffrey,  third  of  the  name,  was  a 
character  of  another  complexion,  a  gentle- 
man born,  a  graduate  of  Harvard  in  1730, 
and  one  of  His  Majesty's  Council  in  1766  — 
a  man  with  the  blood  of  the  lion  and  the 
unicorn  in  every  vein.  He  remained  to  the 


100       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

bitter  end,  and  beyond,  a  devout  royalist, 
prizing  his  shoe-buckles,  not  because  they 
were  of  chased  silver,  but  because  they  bore 
the  tower  mark  and  crown  stamp.  He 
stoutly  objected  to  oral  prayer,  on  the 
ground  that  it  gave  rogues  and  hypocrites 
an  opportunity  to  impose  on  honest  folk. 
He  was  punctilious  in  his  attendance  at 
church,  and  unfailing  in  his  responses, 
though  not  of  a  particularly  devotional 
temperament.  On  one  occasion,  at  least, 
his  sincerity  is  not  to  be  questioned.  He 
had  been  deeply  irritated  by  some  en- 
croachments on  the  boundaries  of  certain 
estates,  and  had  gone  to  church  that  fore- 
noon with  his  mind  full  of  the  matter. 
When  the  minister  in  the  course  of  reading 
the  service  came  to  the  apostrophe,  "  Cursed 
be  he  who  removeth  his  neighbor's  land* 
mark,"  Mr.  Jeffrey's  feelings  were  too  many 
for  him,  and  he  cried  out  "  Amen ! "  in  a 
tone  of  voice  that  brought  smiles  to  the 
adjoining  pews. 
Mr.  Jaffrey's  last  will  and  testament  was 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA        101 

a  whimsical  document,  in  spite  of  the  Hon. 
Jeremiah  Mason,  who  drew  up  the  paper. 
It  had  originally  been  Mr.  Jaffrey' s  plan  to 
leave  his  possessions  to  his  beloved  friend, 
Colonel  Joshua  Wentworth ;  but  the  colonel 
by  some  maladroitness  managed  to  turn  the 
current  of  Pactolus  in  another  direction. 
The  vast  property  was  bequeathed  to  George 
Jaffrey  Jeffries,  the  testator's  grandnephew, 
on  condition  that  the  heir,  then  a  lad  of 
thirteen,  should  drop  the  name  of  Jeffries, 
reside  permanently  in  Portsmouth,  and 
adopt  no  profession  excepting  that  of  gen- 
tleman. There  is  an  immense  amount  of 
Portsmouth  as  well  as  George  Jaffrey  in 
that  final  clause.  George  the  fourth  hand- 
somely complied  with  the  requirements,  and 
dying  at  the  age  of  sixty-six,  without  issue 
or  assets,  was  the  last  of  that  particular  line 
of  Georges.  I  say  that  he  handsomely  com- 
plied with  the  requirements  of  the  will ;  but 
my  statement  appears  to  be  subject  to  quali- 
fication, for  on  the  day  of  his  obsequies  it 
was  remarked  of  him  by  a  caustic  contempo- 


102       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

rary:  "Well,  yes,  Mr.  Jaffrey  was  a  gen- 
tleman by  profession,  but  not  eminent  in  his 
profession." 

This  modest  exhibition  of  profiles,  in 
which  I  have  attempted  to  preserve  no 
chronological  sequence,  ends  with  the  sil- 
houette of  Dr.  Joseph  Moses. 

If  Boston  in  the  colonial  days  had  her 
Mather  Byles,  Portsmouth  had  her  Dr. 
Joseph  Moses.  In  their  quality  as  humor- 
ists, the  outlines  of  both  these  gentlemen 
have  become  rather  broken  and  indistinct. 
"A  jest's  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear  that 
hears  it."  Decanted  wit  inevitably  loses  its 
bouquet.  A  clever  repartee  belongs  to  the 
precious  moment  in  which  it  is  broached, 
and  is  of  a  vintage  that  does  not  usually  bear 
transportation.  Dr.  Moses  —  he  received 
his  diploma  not  from  the  College  of  Phy- 
sicians, but  from  the  circumstance  of  his 
having  once  drugged  his  private  demijohn 
of  rum,  and  so  nailed  an  inquisitive  negro 
named  Sambo  —  Dr.  Moses,  as  he  was  always 
called,  has  been  handed  down  to  us  by  tra- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       103 

dition  as  a  fellow  of  infinite  jest  and  of  most 
excellent  fancy;  but  I  must  confess  that  1 
find  his  high  spirits  very  much  evaporated. 
His  humor  expended  itself,  for  the  greater 
part,  in  practical  pleasantries  —  like  that 
practiced  on  the  minion  Sambo  —  but  these 
diversions,  however  facetious  to  the  parties 
concerned,  lack  magnetism  for  outsiders.  I 
discover  nothing  about  him  so  amusing  as 
the  fact  that  he  lived  in  a  tan-colored  little 
tenement,  which  was  neither  clapboarded 
nor  shingled,  and  finally  got  an  epidermis 
from  the  discarded  shingles  of  the  Old 
South  Church  when  the  roof  of  that  edifice 
was  repaired. 

Dr.  Moses,  like  many  persons  of  his  time 
and  class,  was  a  man  of  protean  employment 
—  joiner,  barber,  and  what  not.  No  doubt 
he  had  much  pithy  and  fluent  conversation, 
all  of  which  escapes  us.  He  certainly  im- 
pressed the  Hon.  Theodore  Atkinson  as  a 
person  of  uncommon  parts,  for  the  Honor- 
able Secretary  of  the  Province,  like  a  second 
Haroun  Al  Raschid,  often  summoned  the 


104       AY  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

barber  to  entertain  him  with  his  company. 
One  evening  —  and  this  is  the  only  repro- 
ducible instance  of  the  doctor's  readiness  — 
Mr.  Atkinson  regaled  his  guest  with  a  di- 
minutive glass  of  choice  Madeira.  The  doc- 
tor regarded  it  against  the  light  with  the 
half -closed  eye  of  the  connoisseur,  and  after 
sipping  the  molten  topaz  with  satisfaction, 
inquired  how  old  it  was.  "  Of  the  vintage 
of  about  sixty  years  ago,"  was  the  answer. 
"  Well,"  said  the  doctor  reflectively,  "  I 
never  in  my  life  saw  so  small  a  thing  of 
such  an  age."  There  are  other  mots  of  his 
on  record,  but  their  faces  are  suspiciously 
familiar.  In  fact,  all  the  witty  things  were 
said  aeons  ago.  If  one  nowadays  perpetrates 
an  original  joke,  one  immediately  afterward 
finds  it  in  the  Sanskrit.  I  am  afraid  that 
Dr.  Joseph  Moses  has  no  very  solid  claims 
on  us.  I  have  given  him  place  here  because 
he  has  long  had  the  reputation  of  a  wit, 
which  is  almost  as  good  as  to  be  one. 


vn 

PERSONAL  REMINISCENCES 

THE  running  of  the  first  train  over  the 
Eastern  Road  from  Boston  to  Portsmouth  — 
it  took  place  somewhat  more  than  forty  years 
ago  —  was  attended  by  a  serious  accident. 
The  accident  occurred  in  the  crowded  station 
at  the  Portsmouth  terminus,  and  was  un- 
observed at  the  time.  The  catastrophe  was 
followed,  though  not  immediately,  by  death, 
and  that  also,  curiously  enough,  was  un- 
observed. Nevertheless,  this  initial  train, 
freighted  with  so  many  hopes  and  the  Di- 
rectors of  the  Road,  ran  over  and  killed  — 
LOCAL  CHARACTER. 

Up  to  that  day  Portsmouth  had  been  a 
very  secluded  little  community,  and  had  had 
the  courage  of  its  seclusion.  From  time  to 
time  it  had  calmly  produced  an  individual 


106       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

built  on  plans  and  specifications  of  its  own, 
without  regard  to  the  prejudices  and  con- 
ventionalities of  outlying  districts.  This 
individual  was  purely  indigenous.  He  was 
born  in  the  town,  he  lived  to  a  good  old  age 
in  the  town,  and  never  went  out  of  the  place, 
until  he  was  finally  laid  under  it.  To  him, 
Boston,  though  only  fifty-six  miles  away, 
was  virtually  an  unknown  quantity  —  only 
fifty-six  miles  by  brutal  geographical  mea- 
surement, but  thousands  of  miles  distant  in 
effect.  In  those  days,  in  order  to  reach  Bos- 
ton you  were  obliged  to  take  a  great  yellow, 
clumsy  stage-coach,  resembling  a  three-story 
mud-turtle  —  if  the  zoologist  will,  for  the 
sake  of  the  simile,  tolerate  so  daring  an  in- 
vention ;  you  were  obliged  to  take  it  very 
early  in  the  morning,  you  dined  at  noon  at 
Ipswich,  and  clattered  into  the  great  city 
with  the  golden  dome  just  as  the  twilight 
was  falling,  provided  always  the  coach  had 
not  shed  a  wheel  by  the  roadside  or  one  of 
the  leaders  had  not  gone  lame.  To  many 
worthy  and  well-to-do  persons  in  Portsmouth, 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       107 

this  journey  was  an  event  which  occurred 
only  twice  or  thrice  during  life.  To  the 
typical  individual  with  whom  I  am  for  the 
moment  dealing,  it  never  occurred  at  all. 
The  town  was  his  entire  world ;  he  was  as 
parochial  as  a  Parisian  ;  Market  Street  was 
his  Boulevard  des  Italiens,  and  the  North 
End  his  Bois  de  Boulogne. 

Of  course  there  were  varieties  of  local 
characters  without  his  limitations  :  venerable 
merchants  retired  from  the  East  India 
trade  ;  elderly  gentlewomen,  with  family 
jewels  and  personal  peculiarities ;  one  or 
two  scholarly  recluses  in  by-gone  cut  of  coat, 
haunting  the  Athenjeum  reading-room ;  ex- 
sea  captains,  with  rings  on  their  fingers,  like 
Simon  Danz's  visitors  in  Longfellow's  poem 
—  men  who  had  played  busy  parts  in  the 
bustling  world,  and  had  drifted  back  to  Old 
Strawberry  Bank  in  the  tranquil  sunset  of 
their  careers.  I  may  say,  in  passing,  that 
these  ancient  mariners,  after  battling  with 
terrific  hurricanes  and  typhoons  on  every 
known  sea,  not  infrequently  drowned  them- 


108       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

selves  in  pleasant  weather  in  small  sail-boats 
on  the  Piscataqua  River.  Old  sea-dogs  who 
had  commanded  ships  of  four  or  five  hun- 
dred tons  had  naturally  slight  respect  for 
the  potentialities  of  sail-boats  twelve  feet 
long.  But  there  was  to  be  no  further  in- 
crease of  these  odd  sticks  —  if  I  may  call 
them  so,  in  no  irreverent  mood  —  after  those 
innocent-looking  parallel  bars  indissolubly 
linked  Portsmouth  with  the  capital  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts.  All  the 
conditions  were  to  be  changed,  the  old  angles 
to  be  pared  off,  new  horizons  to  be  regarded. 
The  individual,  as  an  eccentric  individual, 
was  to  undergo  great  modifications.  If  he 
were  not  to  become  extinct  —  a  thing  little 
likely  —  he  was  at  least  to  lose  his  promi- 
nence. 

However,  as  I  have  said,  local  character, 
in  the  sense  in  which  the  term  is  here  used, 
was  not  instantly  killed  ;  it  died  a  lingering 
death,  and  passed  away  so  peacefully  and 
silently  as  not  to  attract  general,  or  perhaps 
any,  notice.  This  period  of  gradual  dissolu- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       109 

tion  fell  during  my  boyhood.  The  last  of 
the  cocked  hats  had  gone  out,  and  the  rail- 
way had  come  in,  long  before  my  time ;  but 
certain  bits  of  color,  certain  half  obsolete 
customs  and  scraps  of  the  past,  were  still  left 
over.  I  was  not  too  late,  for  example,  to 
catch  the  last  town  crier  —  one  Nicholas 
Newman,  whom  I  used  to  contemplate  with 
awe,  and  now  recall  with  a  sort  of  affection. 
Nicholas  Newman — Nicholas  was  a  so- 
briquet, his  real  name  being  Edward  —  was 
a  most  estimable  person,  very  short,  cross- 
eyed, somewhat  bow-legged,  and  with  a  bell 
out  of  all  proportion  to  his  stature.  I  have 
never  since  seen  a  bell  of  that  size  discon- 
nected with  a  church  steeple.  The  only 
thing  about  him  that  matched  the  instru- 
ment of  his  office  was  his  voice.  His  "  Hear 
All !  "  still  deafens  memory's  ear.  I  re- 
member that  he  had  a  queer  way  of  sidling 
up  to  one,  as  if  nature  in  shaping  him  had 
originally  intended  a  crab,  but  thought  better 
of  it,  and  made  a  town-crier.  Of  the  crus- 
tacean intention  only  a  moist  thumb  re- 


110       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

mained,  which  served  Mr.  Newman  in  good 
stead  in  the  delivery  of  the  Boston  evening 
papers,  for  he  was  incidentally  newsdealer. 
His  authentic  duties  were  to  cry  auctions, 
funerals,  mislaid  children,  traveling  theatri- 
cals, public  meetings,  and  articles  lost  or 
found.  He  was  especially  strong  in  announ- 
cing the  loss  of  reticules,  usually  the  property 
of  elderly  maiden  ladies.  The  unction  with 
which  he  detailed  the  several  contents,  when 
fully  confided  to  him,  would  have  seemed 
satirical  in  another  person,  but  on  his  part 
was  pure  conscientiousness.  He  would  not 
let  so  much  as  a  thimble,  or  a  piece  of  wax, 
or  a  portable  tooth,  or  any  amiable  vanity  in 
the  way  of  tonsorial  device,  escape  him.  I 
have  heard  Mr.  Newman  spoken  of  as  "that 
horrid  man."  He  was  a  picturesque  figure. 
Possibly  it  is  because  of  his  bell  that  I 
connect  the  town  crier  with  those  dolorous 
sounds  which  I  used  to  hear  rolling  out  of 
the  steeple  of  the  Old  North  every  night  at 
nine  o'clock  —  the  vocal  remains  of  the  co- 
lonial curfew.  Nicholas  Newman  has  passed 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       111 

on,  perhaps  crying  his  losses  elsewhere,  but 
this  nightly  tolling  is  still  a  custom.  I  can 
more  satisfactorily  explain  why  I  associate 
with  it  a  vastly  different  personality,  that 
of  Sol  Holmes,  the  barber,  for  every  night 
at  nine  o'clock  his  little  shop  on  Congress 
Street  was  in  full  blast.  Many  a  time  at 
that  hour  I  have  flattened  my  nose  on  his 
window-glass.  It  was  a  gay  little  shop  (he 
called  it  "  an  Emporium"),  as  barber  shops 
generally  are,  decorated  with  circus  bills, 
tinted  prints,  and  gaudy  fly-catchers  of  tissue 
and  gold  paper.  Sol  Holmes  —  whose  ante- 
cedents to  us  boys  were  wrapped  in  thrilling 
mystery,  we  imagined  him  to  have  been  a 
prince  in  his  native  land  — was  a  colored 
man,  not  too  dark  "  for  human  nature's  daily 
food,"  and  enjoyed  marked  distinction  as 
one  of  the  few  exotics  in  town.  At  this 
juncture  the  foreign  element  was  at  its  min- 
imum; every  official,  from  selectman  down 
to  the  Dogberry  of  the  watch,  bore  a  name 
that  had  been  familiar  to  the1  town  for  a 
hundred  years  or  so.  The  situation  is 


112       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

greatly  changed.  I  expect  to  live  to  see  a 
Chinese  policeman,  with  a  sandal-wood  club 
and  a  rice-paper  pocket  handkerchief,  patrol- 
ling Congress  Street. 

Holmes  was  a  handsome  man,  six  feet  or 
more  in  height,  and  as  straight  as  a  pine. 
He  possessed  his  race's  sweet  temper,  sim- 
plicity, and  vanity.  His  martial  bearing 
was  a  positive  factor  in  the  effectiveness 
of  the  Portsmouth  Greys,  whenever  those 
bloodless  warriors  paraded.  As  he  brought 
up  the  rear  of  the  last  platoon,  with  his  in- 
fantry cap  stuck  jauntily  on  the  left  side 
of  his  head  and  a  bright  silver  cup  slung 
on  a  belt  at  his  hip,  he  seemed  to  youthful 
eyes  one  of  the  most  imposing  things  in  the 
display.  To  himself  he  was  pretty  much 
"  all  the  company."  He  used  to  say,  with 
a  drollness  which  did  not  strike  me  until 
years  afterwards,  "  Boys,  I  and  Cap'n  Towle 
is  goin'  to  trot  out  '  the  Greys  '  to-morroh." 
Though  strictly  honest  in  all  business  deal- 
ings, his  tropical  imagination,  whenever  he 
strayed  into  the  fenceless  fields  of  autobiog- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       113 

raphy,  left  much  to  be  desired  in  the  way 
of  accuracy.  Compared  with  Sol  Holmes 
on  such  occasions,  Ananias  was  a  person  of 
morbid  integrity.  Sol  Holmes's  tragic  end 
was  in  singular  contrast  with  his  sunny 
temperament.  One  night,  long  ago,  he 
threw  himself  from  the  deck  of  a  Sound 
steamer,  somewhere  between  Stonington  and 
New  York.  What  led  or  drove  him  to  the 
act  never  transpired. 

There  are  few  men  who  were  boys  in  Ports- 
mouth at  the  period  of  which  I  write  but 
will  remember  Wibird  Penhallow  and  his 
sky-blue  wheelbarrow.  I  find  it  difficult  to 
describe  him  other  than  vaguely,  possibly 
because  Wibird  had  no  expression  whatever 
in  his  countenance.  With  his  vacant  white 
face  lifted  to  the  clouds,  seemingly  oblivious 
of  everything,  yet  going  with  a  sort  of 
heaven-given  instinct  straight  to  his  destina- 
tion, he  trundled  that  rattling  wheelbarrow 
for  many  a  year  over  Portsmouth  cobble- 
stones. He  was  so  unconscious  of  his  envi- 
ronment that  sometimes  a  small  boy  would 


114       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

pop  into  the  empty  wheelbarrow  and  secure 
a  ride  without  Wibird  arriving  at  any  very 
clear  knowledge  of  the  fact.  His  employ- 
ment in  life  was  to  deliver  groceries  and 
other  merchandise  to  purchasers.  This  he 
did  in  a  dreamy,  impersonal  kind  of  way. 
It  was  as  if  a  spirit  had  somehow  got  hold 
of  an  earthly  wheelbarrow  and  was  trun- 
dling it  quite  unconsciously,  with  no  sense 
of  responsibility.  One  day  he  appeared  at 
a  kitchen  door  with  a  two-gallon  molasses 
jug,  the  top  part  of  which  was  wanting.  It 
was  no  longer  a  jug,  but  a  tureen.  When 
the  recipient  of  the  damaged  article  remon- 
strated with  "Goodness  gracious,  Wibird! 
you  have  broken  the  jug,"  his  features 
lighted  up,  and  he  seemed  immensely  re- 
lieved. "  I  thought,"  he  remarked, "  I  heerd 
somethink  crack ! " 

Wibird  Penhallow's  heaviest  patron  was 
the  keeper  of  a  variety  store,  and  the  first 
specimen  of  a  pessimist  I  ever  encoun- 
tered. He  was  an  excellent  specimen.  He 
took  exception  to  everything.  He  objected 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       115 

to  the  telegraph,  to  the  railway,  to  steam  in 
all  its  applications.  Some  of  his  argu- 
ments, I  recollect,  made  a  deep  impression 
on  my  mind.  "  Nowadays,"  he  once  ob- 
served to  me,  "  if  your  son  or  your  grand- 
father drops  dead  at  the  other  end  of  crea- 
tion, you  know  of  it  in  ten  minutes.  What 's 
the  use  ?  Unless  you  are  anxious  to  know 
he 's  dead,  you  Ve  got  just  two  or  three 
weeks  more  to  be  miserable  in."  He  scorned 
the  whole  business,  and  was  faithful  to  his 
scorn.  When  he  received  a  telegram,  which 
was  rarely,  he  made  a  point  of  keeping  it 
awhile  unopened.  Through  the  exercise  of 
this  whim  he  once  missed  an  opportunity  of 
buying  certain  goods  to  great  advantage, 
"  There !  "  he  exclaimed,  "  if  the  telegraph 
had  n't  been  invented  the  idiot  would  have 
written  to  me,  and  I  'd  have  sent  a  letter  by 
return  coach,  and  got  the  goods  before  he 
found  out  prices  had  gone  up  in  Chicago. 
If  that  boy  brings  me  another  of  those  tape- 
worm telegraphs,  I  '11  throw  an  axe-handle  at 
him."  His  pessimism  extended  up,  or  down, 


116       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

to  generally  recognized  canons  of  orthogra- 
phy. They  were  all  iniquitous.  If  k-n-i-f-e 
spelled  knife,  then,  he  contended,  k-n-i-f-e-s 
was  the  plural.  Diverting  tags,  written 
by  his  own  hand  in  conformity  with  this 
theory,  were  always  attached  to  articles  in 
his  shop  window.  He  is  long  since  ded, 
as  he  himself  would  have  put  it,  but  his 
phonetic  theory  appears  to  have  survived 
him  in  crankish  brains  here  and  there.  As 
my  discouraging  old  friend  was  not  exactly 
a  public  character,  like  the  town  crier  or 
Wibird  Penhallow,  I  have  intentionally 
thrown  a  veil  over  his  identity.  I  have,  so 
to  speak,  dropped  into  his  pouch  a  grain  or 
two  of  that  magical  fern-seed  which  was 
supposed  by  our  English  ancestors,  in  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  to  possess  the  quality  of  ren- 
dering a  man  invisible. 

Another  person  who  singularly  interested 
me  at  this  epoch  was  a  person  with  whom  I 
had  never  exchanged  a  word,  whose  voice  I 
had  never  heard,  but  whose  face  was  as 
familiar  to  me  as  every  day  could  make  it. 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       117 

For  each  morning  as  I  went  to  school,  and 
each  afternoon  as  I  returned,  I  saw  this  face 
peering  out  of  a  window  in  the  second  story 
of  a  shambling  yellow  house  situated  in 
Washington  Street,  not  far  from  the  corner 
of  State.  Whether  some  malign  disease 
had  fixed  Mm  to  the  chair  he  sat  on,  or 
whether  he  had  lost  the  use  of  his  legs,  or, 
possibly,  had  none  (the  upper  part  of  him 
was  that  of  a  man  in  admirable  health), 
presented  a  problem  which,  with  that  curious 
insouciance  of  youth,  I  made  no  attempt  to 
solve.  It  was  an  established  fact,  however, 
that  he  never  went  out  of  that  house.  I 
cannot  vouch  so  confidently  for  the  cob- 
webby legend  which  wove  itself  about  him. 
It  was  to  this  effect :  He  had  formerly  been 
the  master  of  a  large  merchantman  running 
between  New  York  and  Calcutta ;  while 
still  in  his  prime  he  had  abruptly  retired 
from  the  quarter-deck,  and  seated  himself  at 
that  window  —  where  the  outlook  must  have 
been  the  reverse  of  exhilarating,  for  not  ten 
persons  passed  in  the  course  of  the  day,  and 


118       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

the  hurried  jingle  of  the  bells  on  Parry's 
bakery-cart  was  the  only  sound  that  ever 
shattered  the  silence.  Whether  it  was  an 
amatory  or  a  financial  disappointment  that 
turned  him  into  a  hermit  was  left  to  in- 
genious conjecture.  But  there  he  sat,  year 
in  and  year  out,  with  his  cheek  so  close  to 
the  window  that  the  nearest  pane  became 
permanently  blurred  with  his  breath;  for 
after  his  demise  the  blurr  remained. 

In  this  Arcadian  era  it  was  possible,  in 
provincial  places,  for  an  undertaker  to  as- 
sume the  dimensions  of  a  personage.  There 
was  a  sexton  in  Portsmouth  —  his  name  es- 
capes me,  but  his  attributes  do  not  —  whose 
impressiveness  made  him  own  brother  to  the 
massive  architecture  of  the  Stone  Church. 
On  every  solemn  occasion  he  was  the  strik- 
ing figure,  even  to  the  eclipsing  of  the  in- 
voluntary object  of  the  ceremony.  His 
occasions,  happily,  were  not  exclusively  sol- 
emn ;  he  added  to  his"  other  public  services 
that  of  furnishing  ice-cream  for  evening 
parties.  I  always  thought — perhaps  it  was 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       119 

the  working  of  an  unchastened  imagination 
—  that  he  managed  to  throw  into  his  ice- 
creams a  peculiar  chill  not  attained  by  either 
Dunyon  or  Peduzzi  —  arcades  arnbo  —  the 
rival  confectioners. 

Perhaps  I  should  not  say  rival,  for  Mr. 
Dunyon  kept  a  species  of  restaurant,  while 
Mr.  Peduzzi  restricted  himself  to  preparing 
confections  to  be  discussed  elsewhere  than 
on  his  premises.  Both  gentlemen  achieved 
great  popularity  in  their  respective  lines,  but 
neither  offered  to  the  juvenile  population 
quite  the  charm  of  those  prim,  white-capped 
old  ladies  who  presided  over  certain  snuffy 
little  shops,  occurring  unexpectedly  in  silent 
side-streets  where  the  footfall  of  commerce 
seemed  an  incongruous  thing.  These  shops 
were  never  intended  in  nature.  They  had 
an  impromptu  and  abnormal  air  about  them. 
I  do  not  recall  one  that  was  not  located  in  a 
private  residence,  and  was  not  evidently  the 
despairing  expedient  of  some  pathetic  finan- 
cial crisis,  similar  to  that  which  overtook 
Miss  Hepzibah  Pyncheon  in  The  House  of 


120       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

the  Seven  Gables.  The  horizontally  divided 
street  door  —  the  upper  section  left  open  in 
summer  —  ushered  you,  with  a  sudden  jangle 
of  bell  that  turned  your  heart  over,  into  a 
strictly  private  hall,  haunted  by  the  delayed 
aroma  of  thousands  of  family  dinners. 
Thence,  through  another  door,  you  passed 
into  what  had  formerly  been  the  front  parlor, 
but  was  now  a  shop,  with  a  narrow,  brown, 
wooden  counter,  and  several  rows  of  little 
drawers  built  up  against  the  picture-papered 
wall  behind  it.  Through  much  use  the  paint 
on  these  drawers  was  worn  off  in  circles 
round  the  polished  brass  knobs.  Here  was 
stored  almost  every  small  article  required  by 
humanity,  from  an  inflamed  emery  cushion 
to  a  peppermint  Gibraltar  —  the  latter  a  kind 
of  adamantine  confectionery  which,  when  I 
reflect  upon  it,  raises  in  me  the  wonder  that 
any  Portsmouth  boy  or  girl  ever  reached  the 
age  of  fifteen  with  a  single  tooth  left  unbro- 
ken. The  proprietors  of  these  little  knick- 
knack  establishments  were  the  nicest  crea- 
tures, somehow  suggesting  venerable  doves. 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA       121 

They  were  always  aged  ladies,  sometimes 
spinsters,  sometimes  relicts  of  daring  mari- 
ners, beached  long  before.  They  always 
wore  crisp  muslin  caps  and  steel-rimmed 
spectacles;  they  were  not  always  amiable, 
and  no  wonder,  for  even  doves  may  have  their 
rheumatism ;  but  such  as  they  were,  they 
were  cherished  in  young  hearts,  and  are,  I 
take  it,  impossible  to-day. 

When  I  look  back  to  Portsmouth  as  I 
knew  it,  it  occurs  to  me  that  it  must  have 
been  in  some  respects  unique  among  New 
England  towns.  There  were,  for  instance, 
no  really  poor  persons  in  the  place ;  every 
one  had  some  sufficient  calling  or  an  income 
to  render  it  unnecessary ;  vagrants  and  pau- 
pers were  instantly  snapped  up  and  provided 
for  at  "the  Farm."  There  was,  however, 
in  a  gambrel-roofed  house  here  and  there,  a 
decayed  old  gentlewoman,  occupying  a  scru- 
pulously neat  room  with  just  a  suspicion  of 
maccaboy  snuff  in  the  air,  who  had  her 
meals  sent  in  to  her  by  the  neighborhood  — 
as  a  matter  of  course,  and  involving  no  sense 


122       AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  THE  SEA 

of  dependency  on  her  side.  It  is  wonderful 
what  an  extension  of  vitality  is  given  to  an 
old  gentlewoman  in  this  condition ! 

I  would  like  to  write  about  several  of  those 
ancient  Dames,  as  they  were  affectionately 
called,  and  to  materialize  others  of  the 
shadows  that  stir  in  my  recollection;  but 
this  would  be  to  go  outside  the  lines  of  my 
purpose,  which  is  simply  to  indicate  one  of 
the  various  sorts  of  changes  that  have  come 
over  the  vie  intime  of  formerly  secluded 
places  like  Portsmouth — the  obliteration 
of  odd  personalities,  or,  if  not  the  oblitera- 
tion, the  general  disregard  of  them.  Every- 
where in  New  England  the  impress  of  the 
past  is  fading  out.  The  few  old-fashioned 
men  and  women  —  quaint,  shrewd,  and  racy 
of  the  soil — who  linger  in  little,  silvery-gray 
old  homesteads  strung  along  the  New  Eng- 
land roads  and  by-ways  will  shortly  cease  to 
exist  as  a  class,  save  in  the  record  of  some 
such  charming  chronicler  as  Sarah  Jewett, 
or  Mary  Wilkins,  on  whose  sympathetic  page 
they  have  already  taken  to  themselves  a  re- 


AN  OLD  TOWN  BY  TEE  SEA       123 

mote  air,  an  atmosphere  of  long-kept  laven- 
der and  pennyroyal. 

Peculiarity  in  any  kind  requires  encourage- 
ment in  order  to  reach  flower.  The  increased 
facilities  of  communication  between  points 
once  isolated,  the  interchange  of  customs 
and  modes  of  thought,  make  this  encourage- 
ment more  and  more  difficult  each  decade. 
The  naturally  inclined  eccentric  finds  his 
sharp  outlines  rubbed  off  by  unavoidable 
attrition  with  a  larger  world  than  owns  him. 
Insensibly  he  lends  himself  to  the  shaping 
hand  of  new  ideas.  He  gets  his  reversible 
cuffs  and  paper  collars  from  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  the  scarabseus  in  his  scarf- 
pin  from  Mexico,  and  his  ulster  from  every- 
where. He  has  passed  out  of  the  chrysalis 
state  of  Odd  Stick;  he  has  ceased  to  be 
parochial;  he  is  no  longer  distinct;  he  is 
simply  the  Average  Man. 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


MM 

ADAMS,  NATHANIEL 19, 75 

ADDISON,  JOSEPH  ........    60 

ALLEN,  WILLIAM  ........    68 

ANANIAS 113 

*  ATKINSON,  THEODORE 89, 103 

AUSTIN,  REBECCA         .......    75 

BEAUJOLAIS,  Due  de     .......    35 

BLAY,  RUTH 73 

BOGGS,  AMOS         ........    92 

BBEWSTEB,  CHABLES  WAKKEN  .       32,  40,  51,  78, 82,  97 

BKIDGET,  MOLLY 72 

BROWN,  Rev.  ABTHUB 52 

BROWN,  Captain  ELIHU  D .12 

BRUCE,  CYRUS 78 

BURROUGHS,  Rev.  Dr.  CHARLES  .       .       .       .       .37 

BYLES,  Rev.  MATHER 102 

CAROLINE,  Queen  ........    29 

CHADBORN,  HUMPHREY       ......     7 

CHARLES,  Prince    ........      5 

CHASTELLUX,  Marquis  de 35 

CLAGETT,  WYSEMAN 94 

COPLEY,  JOHN  SINGLETON 38 

D'C-RLEANS,  Due 36 

DUNYON,  WILLIAM 119 

ELIZABETH,  Queen        .......    63 


126  INDEX  OF  NAMES 

FENTON,  JOHN 59 

FOWLE,  DANIEL 76 

FOWLE,  PRIMUS 77 

FRANKLIN,  BENJAMIN 43 

FTTBBEB,  THOMAS  ........    77 

GEOKGE! 60 

GEKRY,  ELBBIDGE 49 

GOUGES,  Sir  FERDINAND 6 

GUAST,  PIERRE  de 4 

HAM,  SUPPLY 43 

HANCOCK,  JOHN 49 

HAWTHORNE,  NATHANIEL 11,  93 

HILTON,  MARTHA 51 

HOLMES,  OLIVER  WENDELL 57 

HOLMES,  SOL Ill 

JAFFREY,  GEORGE 99 

JAFFRIES,  GEORGE  JAFFREY 101 

JEWETT,  SARAH  OHNE 122 

KEAIS,  SAMUEL 67 

KEKUANAOA 13 

KENNY,  PENELOPE 73 

KNOX,  General  HENRY 49 

LAFAYETTE,  Marquis  de 49 

LAIGHTON,  ALBERT 73 

LAIGHTON,  OSCAR 25 

LANGDON,  Colonel  JOHN 34 

LEAR,  BENJAMIN 84 

LONGFELLOW,  HENRY  WADSWORTH  .       .       .50, 107 

•  MACPHEADRIS,  ARCHIBALD] 39 

McDoNOUGH,  JAMES 92 

MASON,  JEREMIAH 101 

MASON,  JOHN 6, 63 


INDEX  OF  NAMES  127 

MASON,  JOHN  TUFTON 29 

MARCH,  CLEMENT 72 

MATHER,  Eev.  COTTON 69 

MEHKRVE,  GEOHGE 18 

MICHELANGELO 65 

MITCHEL,  LETTICE 95 

MOFFATT,  CATHERINE 87 

MOLIEKE 96 

MONTPENSIER,  Due  de 36 

MOSES,  JOSEPH      ........  102 

NEWMAN,  EDWARD 109 

NOBLE,  MARK 47 

ODIORNE,  EBEN  L .32 

PACKER,  THOMAS  ........    73 

PEDUZZI,  DOMINIC 119 

PENHALLOW,  WIBIRD 113 

PEPPERELL,  Sir  WILLIAM 26,  80 

PEPYS,  SAMUEL 35 

PHILIPPE,  Louis 50 

PHIPPEB,  THOMAS 67 

PHIPPS,  Governor  ........    42 

PICKERING,  JOHN 20,  65 

PITT,  WILLIAM 48 

POTTLE,  WILLIAM 48 

PRING,  MARTIN 1 

QUINCT,  DOROTHY 57 

ROOHAMBEAU,  Count  de 35 

ROUSSELET,  NICHOLAS 87 

RUTLEDGE,  EDWARD 49 

SERAT,  LEONARD 86 

SEWELL,  JONATHAN 74 

SHAKESPEARE  .  ....    84 


128  INDEX  OF  NAMES 

SHEAFE,  JACOB      ........    92 

•  SHEBBUBNE,  HENRY 30 

SHUBTLEFF,  MABY  ATKINSON     .....    89 

SHDBTLEFF,  Rev.  WILLIAM 89 

SIMPSON,  SAHAH .       .       .    73 

SMITH,  Captain  JOHN 3 

SOCRATES 90 

STAVEBS,  DAMB 51 

STAYEBS,  JOHN 46, 75 

STEDMAN,  EDMUND  CLARENCE 26 

STOODLET,  JAMES         .......    28 

THAXTER,  CELIA 25 

THOBEAU,  HENBT  DAVED    ......    84 

TILTON,  JOHNNY 97 

TOWLE,  GEOBQE  WILUAM 112 

WALTON,  GEOBGE         .......    69 

WABNEB,  JONATHAN 40 

WASHINGTON,  GEORGE 34, 83 

WEBSTEB,  DANIEL       .......    97 

WENTWOBTH,  BENNINQ 51 

WENTWOBTH,  JOHN 39 

WENTWOBTH,  JOHN  2i>        ......    58 

WENTWOBTH,  Colonel  JOSHUA     .       .       .       .       .101 

WENTWOBTH,  MABY 39 

WENTWOBTH,  MICHAEL 54 

WENTWOBTH,  SARAH    . 39 

WESTWEBE,  EDWABD 65 

WHITTIEB,  JOHN  GBEENLEAF 15 

WIBIRD,  RICHARD 9 

WILKINS,  MABY  E 122 

WINN,  TIMOTHY 86 

WITHER,  GEORGE 5 

XANTIPPE .    90 


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